Views: 0 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2026-09-30 Origin: Site
Every week we receive the same email: "I want to start a tile adhesive factory. What machines do I need?"
The honest answer is that there is no single equipment list. What you need depends on three things: your formula, your target capacity, and your packaging. A buyer making 5 t/h with pre-dried sand needs six machines. A buyer making 20 t/h from wet river sand needs fourteen.
So instead of a shopping list, here is the logic behind the list — so you can build your own.
1. First, understand what is inside tile adhesive
Tile adhesive (also called tile glue, tile bond, or C2/C1 adhesive) is a dry-mixed powder. A typical formula contains four material groups:
- Washed and graded silica sand (0.1–0.6 mm) — roughly 40–60%
- Cement (OPC 42.5 or 52.5) — roughly 30–40%
- Fillers — calcium carbonate, fly ash, quartz powder
- Additives — HPMC / cellulose ether, redispersible polymer powder (RDP), fibers, starch ether — usually only 1–5%
Every machine in the line exists to handle one of these four groups correctly. The additives are the smallest part by weight, yet they decide the quality and the selling price of your product. Keep that in mind: a line that cannot dose additives accurately cannot make good tile adhesive.
2. The core equipment list
2.1 Sand drying and screening (needed only if your sand is wet)
River sand dug from a pit arrives with 8–15% moisture. In a dry mortar line it must be dried to below 0.5%, otherwise the powder cakes in the mixer and your packed bags swell.
This section usually includes:
- Three-cylinder rotary dryer (coal, gas, diesel or biomass burner)
- Vibrating screen after drying, usually 2–3 layers, to split 0.1–0.3 mm and 0.3–0.6 mm
- Bucket elevator and belt conveyors
Can you skip it? Yes — if you can reliably buy pre-dried, graded sand from a local supplier, you remove this whole section and save roughly 20–30% of the total investment. But in many markets this supply is not dependable. Check the sand supplier before you check the machine supplier.
2.2 Storage silos
Flat-bottom silos with screw conveyors for sand, cement and fillers. Additive bins are smaller and should be separate, with their own precise screw feeders. Never let additives share a silo with filler — cross-contamination will ruin your formula.
2.3 Weighing and batching system
This is where quality is either made or lost. In a tile adhesive formula, additives make up only 1–3% of the total weight. If your batching tolerance is 2%, your product is out of specification before mixing even starts. Look for:
- Load cells with ±0.5% accuracy for sand and cement
- ±0.2% or better for additives
- Automatic compensation, calibration and formula storage in the PLC
2.4 The mixer — the heart of the line
Two mainstream options:
Twin-shaft gravity-free mixer. Two horizontal shafts create a fluidized mixing zone. Typical batch time is 60–90 seconds, and the coefficient of variation (CV) is usually below 5%. Best choice for higher output and for formulas containing fibers or pigments.
Single-shaft ribbon mixer. Lower cost, but mixing time is 3–6 minutes and uniformity is weaker. Acceptable for simple cement-and-sand formulas.
For tile adhesive containing RDP and HPMC, we strongly recommend the gravity-free twin-shaft type. Poor mixing does not fail immediately — it shows up months later as uneven color, weak spots and customer complaints.
2.5 High-speed fly-cut mixer (optional, but often useful)
Some additives — HPMC, fiber, pigment — benefit from pre-mixing or pre-dispersion. A high-speed fly-cut mixer handles small-batch premix, and it is also the standard machine for putty powder and special mortars. Many clients add it in year two as a second product line.
2.6 Buffer silo before packing
A buffer silo decouples mixing from packing, so the mixer does not stop every time a bag jams or a pallet is changed. Size it for roughly 20–30 minutes of production.
2.7 Packing machine
Valve bag (25 / 40 / 50 kg): faster and cleaner, about 4–6 bags per minute per spout, but you must buy valve-type bags.
Open-mouth bag: cheaper bags and more widely available, about 2–4 bags per minute per spout, with more dust at the spout.
Choose the bag type according to your local market, not according to the machine price. Ask your future customers which bag they prefer before you order the packing machine — changing bag type later means changing the whole packing head.
2.8 Dust collection and PLC control
A pulse-jet dust collector is not an optional extra. It protects your workers, it is usually required at environmental inspection, and it recovers product that would otherwise be lost. The PLC cabinet controls the batching, mixing and packing sequence and stores your recipes, so switching products takes minutes instead of hours.
2.9 Optional upgrades
- Big-bag (jumbo bag) filling station for project-scale customers
- Bulk tanker loading for large construction sites
- Robotic palletizing — payback is typically 1–2 years above roughly 8–10 t/h with two shifts
3. From capacity to equipment: a rough map
Target output | Mixer | Packing | Layout |
5–8 t/h | 1 m³ twin-shaft or ribbon | 1 spout | Workshop type, low building |
10–15 t/h | 2 m³ twin-shaft | 2 spouts | Step type |
20–30 t/h | 3–4 m³ twin-shaft | 4 spouts + palletizer | Tower type |
Important: actual output always depends on the formula, the bag weight and the daily working hours. When you request a quotation, state it precisely — for example, "X t/h at 50 kg valve bags, 20 hours per day." Otherwise every supplier will quote a different number and you cannot compare them.
4. Five things to write in your inquiry
1. Product list — tile adhesive, putty, self-leveling, repair mortar, or several of them
2. Target capacity in t/h and working hours per day
3. Sand source — pre-dried graded sand, or raw wet sand
4. Bag type and bag weight
5. Local power supply (380V/50Hz or other) and available building height
Suppliers who answer these five points in their quotation usually know what they are doing. Suppliers who answer only "we can do everything" usually do not.
5. The mistake that costs the most money
Buying the cheapest mixer on the list.
In a tile adhesive line, the mixer decides whether your 1–5% additives actually do their job. A buyer who saves USD 15,000 on the mixer but produces off-spec adhesive will lose far more than that on a single rejected container — plus the reputation in his own market.
Spend the money on the mixer and the batching system. Save it on the paint colour of the steel structure.
Start with the right questions
Zhongqinglin Heavy Industry designs and manufactures tower-type, step-type and workshop-type dry mortar and tile adhesive production lines, together with twin-shaft gravity-free mixers, high-speed fly-cut mixers, sand making plants, crushing and screening equipment, and robotic palletizing systems.
Tell us your formula, your target output and your bag type — we will send you a configuration drawing and an equipment list, not a generic catalogue.
Contact: Fay Wu | Sales Representative
WhatsApp: +86 198 5421 3785