- Written by Dennis M. Mahoney PhD & Jonathon Stuart, Henry Company & D. Paul Miller PhD, Consultant
The process and chemistry of converting raw gypsum to a finished commercial board has been developed and refined over many years. Improvements to the process include improved board mixer and kiln designs as well as improvements to the chemistry both defined and non-defined by the process. Improvements have been achieved in terms of board-weight reduction, resistance to water and mould and specialised performance in areas such as fire-resistance and acoustical applications. The current process of wallboard manufacture has been refined to its current state with relatively incremental improvements to the technology with a significant focus on cost improvements exacerbated by the current economic environment.
The Henry Company, a supplier of wax emulsions to the wallboard industry, has completed a significant amount of work in developing and improving additives to the wallboard slurry that can help to improve the economics of the wallboard manufacturing process as well as improve the performance of the finished board. The focus of this work was directed at improving line speed, reducing energy demand and increasing board strength to allow density reduction and/or raw material cost savings. This effort has resulted in proprietary products that allow a reduction in water demand while maintaining the proper rheological profile of the slurry with a concurrent increase in board strength.
- Written by Derco Gypsum
The wallboard industry has become a challenging business, in which consumers demand virtually finished walls that do not need further treatment and fierce price competition forces manufacturers to work as efficiently as possible. In the process of efficient working, the forming line plays an important role and its belt is a weak link, having to be both reliable and consistently smooth. The belt's flatness determines the quality of production output, whilst downtime for installation, maintenance and repair lays a heavy burden on production efficiency and costs.
Having heard of its experience in the development and production of thermoplastic conveyor belts, global wallboard manufacturers approached Derco, asking it to find a solution for the many issues surrounding the forming line belt. Over recent years, the Derco Gypsum thermoplastic forming line belt has proved to be a very successful alternative for the conventional rubber belt. In this article we will explain why.
- Written by Bob Bruce PhD, Innogyps
The first time I remember being exposed to the overall concept of 'Megatrends' was about 40 years ago with the publication of 'Future Shock' (Toffler, 1970). This book described the social changes associated with the rapid growth of information and technology change. Since then there have been several books, many with 'Megatrends' (Naisbitt, 1982) in the name, that have described how the future was going to be affected by many factors including globalisation, decentralisation, networking, many choices, women, religion, growth, arts, individual rights, demographics, conscious capitalism, global power shifts, energy, the environment and ethics to name more than a few. The purpose of this article is to take five obvious megatrends of today and to describe how the gypsum industry is likely to be affected by these over the next 15 years.
The megatrends that will be discussed in this article are information, energy supply, sustainability, demographics/wealth and globalisation/power. It is possible to write a book about every one of these topics, so I will not try to cover these topics in detail, only to point out that each of these things are very important today and that they will affect the gypsum industry into the future.
I will describe some basic points of each topic as a background for the discussion about how this will affect the gypsum industry, specifically how it will impact on markets, customers, products and services, suppliers, costs/profits and the gypsum companies that operate in this industry globally.
- Written by David Hayes, special correspondent
Japan's gypsum board industry has faced challenging market conditions during the past two years with the global economic crisis slowing investment in the domestic property market and causing a downturn in demand for construction materials including plasterboard. Global Gypsum Magazine's special correspondent has been to visit Yoshino in Tokyo, and brings back this exclusive report on trends in Japan's gypsum industry.
Demand for gypsum board is expected to grow as Japan's economy recovers and investment in residential and commercial property begins to rise again. For the country's plasterboard manufacturers, the task ahead is to ensure high production efficiency in their production plants and to continue marketing efforts to increase the proportion of gypsum board used in property construction.
"The gypsum board market peaked here at 605.2 million square metres in 2006 but since the recent recession the market has declined," commented Yoshino Gypsum Co Ltd technical department manager, Kazuyuki Umehara, "Japan's economic situation is down now and there is little demand for construction projects. There are only a few new buildings. Housing project starts during the past four years have been declining. Japan's ageing society is a problem but mainly it is due to the economic conditions."
