Industrial Uses for Guar Gum

Guar gum is renowned for its role as a thickener, emulsifier, and stabilizer in the food industry. These uses and many others also carry over to the industry as seen in the examples below.

• Pet food and veterinary supplements use guar gum as a thickener and gel to retain water and suspend ingredients.

• The pharmaceutical industry utilizes guar gum in powder form as a disintegrating aid in capsulized drugs. Before it is digested, guar gum acts as a binder in capsules as well. Its disintegration speed controls the amount and timing of drugs delivered into the body.

• In cosmetics, guar gum is added to toothpaste and other substances in similar containers for constant tube extrusion. Guar gum’s thickening ability gives creams and lotions their texture.

• The paper industry has found guar gum gives paper a denser surface for easier printing. Its bonding strength makes the paper easier to erase and write on, and it is the substance that helps paper fold. Sheet formation is enhanced with the addition of guar gum.

• In textiles, guar gum is used in forms as a thickener for sizing, finishing, and printing. Guar gum’s flexibility factor reduces warping and snapping, its emulsifying activity reduces dust, and production is more efficient when guar gum is added.

• The oil industry is the main consumer of guar gum. Well fracturing, shale oil extraction and fracturing, oil well stimulation, and mud drilling are enhanced with guar gum, where it is used as a suspending agent, stabilizer, surfactant, synthetic polymer, and thickener. Guar gum minimizes power requirements by reducing friction while drilling, and maintains drilling mud viscosities to aid in removing drill waste from deep holes. Geological, water, and oil well drilling also find guar gum advantageous.

• In mining, guar gum acts as a flocculant to separate liquids and solids.

With its myriad industrial uses, guar gum has an application for almost any corporation. Find more information by browsing the Bell Chem website, or by calling a Tampa chemical supplier agent at (407) 339-BELL (2355).