This content introduces a simplified, accessible method for creating Aeroccrete, a lightweight, fireproof, and highly insulating building material, without the need for specialized equipment.
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Aeroccrete is amazing, but making it
usually requires an expensive foam
machine, an air compressor, cement
mixer, and meticulous trial and error to
learn how to use everything correctly.
But it doesn't have to be that
difficult. In this video, we'll learn
how to make Aeroccrete that is
lightweight, fireproof, more insulating
than foam board, and so easy to make. A
bag of cement and a few items from the
local grocery store is all it takes.
My name is Ben. Thank you for being
here. This is a block of Aeroccrete. An
ordinary cinder block of this size
weighs almost 40 lb, but this one is
more than 60% air. It is incredibly
insulating, like the world's best
styrofoam. Minus the microplastics, it's
completely fireproof. It blocks sound
like almost nothing else, all while
using less than half of the raw
materials of concrete. And it still cures
cures
basically into solid rock that can last
for centuries. Materials with incredible
properties like Aeroccrete are often
made by experts, people who have spent
endless hours researching a topic and
building custom tools to make the best
version of that thing. As a result, the
recipes and methods these experts come
up with seem simple to them. But for
those of us who just want to try a new
thing and have it work the first time,
that usually requires a new approach.
When it comes to airrated cement, the
expert method is to use a DIY or
purchased foam generator calibrated with
a custom detergent mixture to produce
foam of a very particular density.
Followed by mixing the perfect amount of
foam with the perfect amount of
pre-wetted cement, which is stirred just
enough, but not too much before the
Aeroccrete is ready to pour. Get any
step wrong and the batch will fail.
Thankfully, you can get results like
this with no expertise. And I made it my
business over the last few months to
discover how.
Unlike the expert method, my process
does not require any specialty tools to
generate foam. By simply mixing the
cement, even by hand, bubbles are
generated automatically, which is
typically an impossible thing to pull
off. Because cement is heavy and
extremely alkaline, it actively destroys
the bubble forming ability of many
detergents while also pulling the water
out of foam as soon as it's added. It's
a race against time to mix foam into
cement before it collapses. Generating
foam directly in the hostile environment
of wet cement is a pipe dream according
to conventional methods. But the secret
that I have found to make this work is
zanthan gum. This is a thickener that
you can purchase at almost all grocery
stores. It's much cheaper to buy it in
bulk online, but I very much like when
cutting edge tech can be pulled off with
grocery store items. It's more fun that
way. If you mix zanthan gum directly
into cement, it will do almost nothing.
The cement steals all of the water
immediately with none left over for the
zanthan to do its thing. That changes if
you combine the zanthan gum with water first.
first.
So, here is my recipe. This is a
two-step process. First, we create a
mixture of zanthan gum detergent and
water. And in part two, we mix this with
dry cement. Make sure to wear a mask
while the cement is dry and throwing off
dust. We start with 15 g of zanthan gum
in a large container. And to this, we
add a splash of rubbing alcohol. Even
alcohol-based mouthwash will work for
this part. And you don't have to be
precise on the quantity. The purpose of
the alcohol is just to create a slurry
with the zanthan gum and pre-wet it.
Without this step, you will have a
really difficult time trying to mix the
zanthan into water directly without it
forming clumps. Next, we need 60 ml or
a/4 cup of dishwashing detergent. This
is Dawn Ultra detergent. And if you use
a different brand, just make sure that
the top ingredients are the same ones
that are listed on screen. Now,
once the dish soap is stirred in, we can
add one liter of water to this
container. And that's all there is to
it. This solution should be left to sit
for 5 or 10 minutes for the zanthan gum
to fully hydrate and thicken up, at
which point it will be a very thick gel.
By prehydrating this mixture, the
zanthan gum will slow the cement's
absorption of water, which preserves the
thickening effect and also protects the
foaming power of the detergent.
There is only one more step to turn this
into a
to mix it with cement. For real, that's
it. measured by volume. You take one
part of this gel to two parts of
Portland cement and mix them together.
Any sort of mixing method can be used
here. Even a spatula or a paint stick is
adequate, but it's less work if you use
something like this. It will seem at
first like there's not enough water in
the cement, but with continued mixing,
it quickly becomes more liquid as
bubbles form inside. One of my favorite
things about Aeroccrete is that it's so
much easier to stir than ordinary
concrete. Both because it's lighter
weight and it's much softer. It's just a
pleasure to work with compared to the
struggle of stirring concrete in a
wheelbarrow. The more you stir this
mixture, the softer and lighter it
becomes as it slowly expands to fill
more of the container.
And this is the only variable you need
to worry about. The more you stir, the
more the Aeroccrete will expand, giving
you a lower density product in the end.
If you want a version with more
mechanical strength, quit stirring when
it is only expanded a small amount. If
you want lighter weight and more
insulative value, stir longer until the
foam expands fully. >> [snorts]
>> [snorts]
>> The easy way to get consistent results
is to draw marks on your container so
that when you start another batch with
the same amount of ingredients, you'll
know exactly when to stop stirring once
the foam reaches that line. Doing this
will make a with exactly the same
properties as previous batches.
Eventually, if you keep expanding the
foam for long enough, it will start to
separate from the cement. This becomes
obvious if you stop mixing and notice
that the bubbles at the surface pop.
This is the transition point between
making Aeroccrete that has a closed cell
structure to now making an open cell
version. Place a mark on your mixing
container to indicate that this is the
limit for making closed cell aerocete.
Continuing to mix past this point can
still be very useful for particular
applications. Open cell foam is more
fragile. However, the open cell
structure left behind by the popping
bubbles allows liquid to pass through
it. The obvious use that comes to mind
is making DIY filtration systems.
Potentially, you could also make blocks
that are both insulating and breathable.
So, let's do a test of Aerocrete's
insulation value. This is a sample that
has been whipped with about 60% air,
which is a good balance between
insulation and strength. We could push
the air content way higher, but I think
this will be enough to get the point
across. I've poured this into a hollow
in a piece of foam board with a known
insulation rating of R6. So, we'll see
how the Aeroccrete compares. So, this
goes on top of a cooler with a 40 W
incandescent light bulb inside to act as
a heater. I've covered the bulb with
foil so the samples are not getting
warmed by direct light, just the air
temperature inside. I'll also insert a
temperature probe on the underside of
the panel which will help us to measure
the difference between the inside and
outside surface. A piece of electrical
tape across both samples will give us a
consistent medium to take an accurate
thermal measurement. And lastly, I'll
cover this with another sheet of foam to
stabilize the external environment.
After an hour, we can take a look with a
thermal camera. Notice how quickly the
foam cools off, but don't let that fool
you. The electrical tape held its
temperature long enough to get a reading
of 94.5°
F on the foam compared to a reading of 92.4°
92.4°
on the cement. The Aeroccrete is indeed
allowing less heat through it than an R
six foam board of the same thickness.
And this sample isn't even as airrated
as it could be with a temp reading on
the inside of the panel of 138° F. And
using the known R six rating of the foam
as a baseline, I think I calculated
correctly to say that the R value of
this 1-inch thick sample of Aeroccrete
is 6.3
better than foam. I think I gave this
test my best shot, but I'm not entirely
confident that it's a good setup. Leave
me a comment if you know of a better way
to measure our values with simple tools.
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Well, one of the things that I have not
yet discovered is if this method for
making aircrete will actually work
inside an ordinary cement mixer. These
rotate pretty slowly and up until now
I've been relying on techniques that
really whip that cement up much faster
than cement would normally be mixed. I
think that there are probably other
methods that could be used to make this
on large scales if this does not work
like modifying a cement mixer to rotate
more quickly. Uh maybe premixing the
foam a little bit so that it's a little
bit easier to get it started. There's
other things we can do, but if this
works as it is with no modification,
then we're on to a method to make
aircrete that could be made at scale
incredibly easily. We just got to try it
and find out. So, for my first test
here, I will be making a 3gon quantity
of aircrete. Starting with one gallon of
water uh pre-thickened with 60 g or one
heaping/4 cup of zanthan gum in my bucket.
bucket.
And I will make a slurry with this using alcohol
and then one cup of dishwashing liquid.
So one cup of dishwashing liquid. This
is a half cup measuring cup for every
one gallon of uh the base mix for the aircrete.
All right, we got our zanthan slurry
made with our one cup of dish soap. Now
I'll just fill this bucket up to the
onegon line and allow that zanthan gum
Pretty thick at this point. I'll throw
It's kind of hard to get it all out of
I have barn spatulas for this very
reason. Why am I scraping it out with a
[gasps] All right, let's now add two
more gallons. We'll measure by volume of
the uh Portland cement into this mixer
and get it going. Boy, I'm excited to
All right,
You can see how crumbly that starts out.
It really doesn't look like enough
I'll stop this for a second. I want to
see if uh I want to see if the liquid is
coming free of the drum properly.
It's kind of a that's a very small batch
of of cement for a mixer this big. So,
if one of the problems might be that
it's just uh not quite enough cement for
My goodness, it's working. [laughter]
Kind of like bread dough. Oh, if
anything, the mixer might be going too
fast for the cement to fall now that
I can take the mask off now that there's
no more dust. But I think that in order
to make this
work properly,
I might have to hold the drum like this
so that uh there's the gravity is
pulling it that cement off the back wall
Doesn't look half bad already. I thought
it would take longer than this. How is
I mean, it is pretty light and foamy.
Gosh, did it stop mixing? Because it was
already becoming starting [snorts] to
get to the point of being overwhipped. I
mean, that was in there for
like 3 minutes, less than five.
We might already be to the point of a
good Aeroccrete mix.
I have my uh a little cinder block mold
here. We'll pour it into this and see.
I mean, it is definitely airrated.
It uh you know, it stands up like a
Well,
Yeah. I mean, that is a super
it is surely airrated cement.
cement.
I figure that by how much cement it just
took to fill this mold, um I think the
volume has probably expanded about half
as much as the aircrete that I made
earlier using a hand mixer. So I think
that is the trade-off here.
Using a proper cement mixer like this, I
think you just end up with a little bit
less foam density um and a little bit
higher cement density. So, this uh is
maybe a mixture with about 50% air in it
instead of um like 75% which I got with
It's still a pretty lightweight brick,
So, here's the block I poured from the
cement mixer. I struggled to get this to
mix properly after it reached a certain
level of foam because it just got too
dang light. it wouldn't fall to the
bottom of the mixer. It could be that
this would have worked better if I had
filled the mixer to a more normal level.
Two or three gallons of cement is a
pretty small quantity for a mixer of
that size. But in any case, this block
is certainly more than 50% air. It
should weigh 50 lb. It actually weighs
22, less than half. So this is viable
aerocetrete on the denser side, but it
was made with only a cement mixer, which
means that this method is viable at
large scales with standard building
equipment that anyone who already pours
concrete would know how to use. That is
a huge deal. Another option for
medium-siz projects that can easily
achieve the highest foam density is a
paddle mixer and a drill. I used this
miniixer to make the Aeroccrete for this
block in a 5gallon bucket. I'll show you
how I did that so you can see another
example of how to actually mix this
stuff practically.
I'll try not to kick up too much dust as
Yeah, you don't want to breathe that.
So now it's already starting to lighten
up. You can see that it's actually soft
>> [laughter]
>> Look at that beautiful texture.
My goodness, it is so lightweight. It's
like liquid styrofoam. Amazing.
Amazing.
Yeah, not quite enough to fill the mold,
but I could have actually whipped quite
a bit more air into that if I wanted to.
That would make the block weaker, of
course. Um, but I think that this will
be adequate for this test. Very good.
The cure time for Aeroccrete is the same
as ordinary concrete or cement. It takes
about a week to reach 75% strength at
room temperature. The one thing to be
aware of is that Aerocrete dries out
much more easily than standard cement
and it will not cure properly if it
dries out in the first few days. You
need to cover it with plastic or cloth
that is kept damp for at least four or 5
days while it cures. But that is all
there is to it to make this pourable
fireproof insulation in a way that works
every time. So add that to the list of
new inventions we've come up with right
here. Easy mix AOcrete. You can help
support me on Patreon if you find this
sort of information valuable. We do
stuff like this all the time and you can
check out everything that's been done
previously by looking through the past
videos on this channel. Leave me some
comments below, please. I love hearing
from you. I'm Ben. Thank you so much for
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