Agglomerate and artificial stone — material advantages

Agglom­er­ate is a durable mate­r­i­al, which includes ground stone. Coun­ter­tops, win­dow sills, engi­neered stone floors and wall cov­er­ings are ide­al for mod­ern and tra­di­tion­al inte­ri­ors. Con­struc­tion stores in Moscow offer a wide selec­tion of arti­fi­cial stone and agglom­er­ate prod­ucts. Prod­ucts from this mate­r­i­al will dec­o­rate any inte­ri­or. Here you can see the addi­tion to the inte­ri­or design.

Agglom­er­ate — an alter­na­tive to nat­ur­al stone

Agglom­er­ate or arti­fi­cial stone con­sists of crushed nat­ur­al stone held togeth­er with a binder, and its prop­er­ties are close to or even bet­ter than those of its nat­ur­al coun­ter­part. Such mate­r­i­al can be an alter­na­tive to quartz agglom­er­ate, as well as nat­ur­al mar­ble and gran­ite.

Syn­thet­ic stone is usu­al­ly pro­duced in the form of slabs 2 or 3 cen­time­ters thick. Coun­ter­tops from it can be sub­ject­ed to fur­ther pro­cess­ing — the mate­r­i­al is excel­lent for trim­ming and grind­ing.

What is agglom­er­ate made of?

The agglom­er­ate can con­sist of four com­po­nents:

• crushed stone (ground stone) of the select­ed type,

• binders (this can be epoxy or poly­ester resin, and some­times hydraulic cement),

• pig­ment,

• glass or mir­ror gran­ules (most often used in the case of the pro­duc­tion of quartz con­glom­er­ate).

In some cas­es, only ground stone (eg mar­ble) and a binder are used. Each of the com­po­nents of the agglom­er­ate per­forms strict­ly defined func­tions, due to which the mate­r­i­al acquires a cer­tain strength and aes­thet­ic val­ue.

Advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages of arti­fi­cial stone — is it worth using it in the inte­ri­or?

Agglom­er­ate, espe­cial­ly quartz, is suit­able for mak­ing stairs, coun­ter­tops or floors main­ly because of its good phys­i­cal prop­er­ties. It is hard, resis­tant to dam­age (such as scratch­es) and easy to keep clean. It also tol­er­ates chang­ing weath­er con­di­tions well and does not absorb water.

The advan­tage of syn­thet­ic stone can be its weight — it is about 20% lighter than gran­ite, which facil­i­tates instal­la­tion and expands the pos­si­bil­i­ties of its use. A use­ful fea­ture is the abil­i­ty to con­nect agglom­er­ate work­tops with­out vis­i­ble joints, as well as fill­ing cav­i­ties with epoxy resin.

The dis­ad­van­tages of this solu­tion include poor resis­tance to high tem­per­a­tures — you should not put a hot pan on an arti­fi­cial stone coun­ter­top, although this is easy to do in the case of pure gran­ite coun­ter­tops.

Agglom­er­ate is a mate­r­i­al for floors, wall cladding, win­dow sills and coun­ter­tops.

Syn­thet­ic stone is wide­ly used in the inte­ri­or. The high hard­ness of gran­ite and quartz con­glom­er­ate, its scratch resis­tance and low water absorp­tion make it an ide­al coun­ter­top for the bath­room or kitchen. It will look good for years of heavy use.

Source: TopClimat.ru