Composition, Properties, and Standards for Cementitious Ceramic Tile Adhesive: A Review

The simplicity and widespread use of adhesive mortars for affixing ceramic tiles as ornamental finishes for indoor and outdoor applications has flourished the market of adhesive dry mortars. In tilling technology, attaching ceramic tiles to different types of surfaces requires a mortar with the requisite workability, flexibility, and adherence. With the evolution of building industry, mortars are now manufactured as ready-to-use products in which mineral binders and aggregates are properly combined. In addition to the fundamental components (cement, lime, sand), additional additives and admixtures are frequently added to the mortar formulations to improve their specifications and achieve varied technical features. Depending on their application purposes, incorporation of these additives and admixtures should be examined in depth to obtain the most significant contributions. In this regard, this article examines the already conducted studies and research works concerning Cementitious Tile Adhesives (CTAs) and explores the adhesion mechanisms, CTA constituents, classification, and standards, and performance evaluation of the cementitious ceramic adhesive. The results from extensive research indicate that a number of distinct parameters affect the adhesion properties of the CTAs. However, further studies are still required to enhance their engineering attributes.