Making a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands: Review + Video

How to make a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands + photo

Mortar and concrete are used in large volumes for repair and construction work. If a plasticizer for cement is not added to the composition of the concrete mixture, then after some time cracks and splits may begin to form in the poured massifs and masonry.

For this reason, we suggest you learn how to make a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands.

General information

Varieties

Before choosing the appropriate additive for your case, you should study all types of additives, which exist, as well as their main functions.

Please note that the performance of the mixture will be improved by modifying its constituent components.

Depending on the type of additive, it can even change the hydration of the cement in a positive direction, make it resistant to negative temperatures, and also make it more elastic.

Slurry plasticizers can:

• Decrease concentration and moisture saturation.
• Reduce sedimentation during hydration.
• Make it easier to fill out the form with the composition, and this will facilitate the masonry process.
• Make sure that the cement slurry that was made in advance is stored for as long as possible.

• Carry out cracking prevention.
• To create an opportunity for the reinforcement made of steel to better contact with the composition.
• Increases structural strength.
• Decrease the required amount of water.
• Will help the solution to delaminate as little as possible.

• Create a more fluid mixture.

Let's look at all the varieties

Accelerators

Cement slurries will harden faster if special chemicals are added to their composition to help speed up the process. Hydration will begin at the moment when water gets into the cement particles, and this will continue even after several months. This will increase the strength of the material. A high moisture content should be maintained at the very beginning of the setting.

At the same time, a temperature for the ambient air will be required higher than 0 degrees (at least +5 degrees, and preferably up to +20).

When moisture begins to be removed from concrete very quickly or remains inside it, then the material begins to crumble and lose its strength. To normalize the process, you should warm up the solution or use special chemical additives.

As accelerators for hardening, you can use:

• Calcium nitrate.
• Calcium chloride.

• Calcium nitrate-nitrate.
• Sodium sulfate.
• Nitrate-nitrate-calcium chloride.
• Trisodium phosphate.
• Sodium chloride.

Manufacturers in the construction market will present accelerators for mortar setting of the brands Relamix, Addiment, Relaxor, Fort UP-2, Concrit-F and others.

Professionals recommend the use of additives when:

1. Working in the cold season, in combination with electric heating.
2. In the process of manufacturing prefabricated elements, panel materials and other shaped piece concrete products. Strength and wear resistance, product appearance is improved, it becomes possible to dispense with fewer molds due to shorter curing time.
3. The need to reduce the time for wrapping the formwork during the casting of the monolith.

4. Reduced construction time by about 2-3 times.
5. Creates lightweight concrete without compromising strength or altering the ratio of water to cement.

Before proceeding to the instructions and learning how to make a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands, consider the following type of additive.

Retarders

During a large volume of construction, difficulties arise that are associated with joining the previously poured sections with fresh mortar. To prevent plaster mixes, concreting solutions, and CMC glue from hardening, use special additives that will help increase the setting time.

The additives have the following advantages:

• Reduced vibration costs.
• Mobility is improved, which means that styling can be done even at temperatures up to +30 degrees.
• Reducing the amount of cement.
• No delamination.
• Reduces shrinkage.

• Strength indicators increase.
• The finished structure will have an excellent surface.
• Workers will be in a comfortable environment due to the fact that there will be no vibration noise.

Retarders are as follows:

1. Chemical additives - NTF (nitrilotrimethylenephosphonic acid), sodium citrate, sodium gluconate.
2. Compositions consisting of several components at once and which are sold ready-made - SikaPlast 520, a retarder from the Kemerovo-based company Promsnab, Linamiks.

3. Food industry waste - sugar molasses, milk whey.

To carry out works that have the "washed concrete" manufacturing technology, in which embossed decorative forms are produced, you can use special retarders - gels or liquids. This can be DSC (architectural retarder), Pieri VBA Bio 2 (biodegradable compound), clean concrete (retardant gel for finishing layers) and G-05 gel. One selected composition should be applied to the front side of the formed elements. Next, the cement, which has not hardened, must be washed under running water, without waiting for the upper layer to seize.

Air entraining

In order for microscopic pores with a diameter of 0.05 mm to appear in the concrete mass, additives are used that will entrain in the mixture required amount of air. This structure is required in order to increase frost resistance.

Moreover, such additives are needed for:

1. Reducing the density of the finished structure.
2. Possibility to use coarse aggregate instead of standard quartz sand.

3. Reducing the consumption of porous materials, as well as the content of water in the mixture.
4. Improvement of thermal and sound insulation.
5. Reducing delamination during transport.
6. Ease for shaping mortar (better workability compared to a mixture that has no additives).

But the disadvantage of this type of additives is that they reduce the strength of the structure, and when the air content increases by 1/100, the strength of concrete decreases by 5.

6%.

Moreover, the following are used:

• Wood saponified resin.
• Synthetic surfactants.
• Salts from organic sulfonic acids
• Wood pitch (i.e.

  saponified).

• Salts derived from proteins.
• Salts from lignosulfonic or petroleum acids.

Although it is possible to make a plasticizer for concrete, we suggest considering brands that sell air entrainment additives:

1. Bisil Cel - Dorizo ​​manufacturing company ", Spain.
2. Mylonaft - the composition is sold in wooden or metal barrels.

   It is a pasty composition that contains at least 2/3 of dry matter.

3. Wood saponified resin (SDO) - it is sold in solid form, in paper bags. To the cement should be added about 0.1-0. 3% of the total volume of the main mixture.

4. TsNIIPS-1 - sold in paper bags, in the form of paste.
5. SPD - solution of 4%, it is supplied in railway tanks.
6. START - neutralized air-entraining resin. It should be added to the composition of concrete in an amount from 0. 005 to 0.

   05% of the total volume.

Next, consider the most popular plasticizer.

Anti-frost

Such additives are required in order to adapt building materials to the climatic conditions of the region. In modern conditions, the construction of most objects continues even in winter due to the use of modifiers. The freezing temperature of the mixture will drop to -20 degrees due to the fact that there will be an effect on the water contained in the composition to accelerate hardening.

Additives to concrete against frost:

1. HC - this plasticizer is a derivative of hydrochloric acid and calcium. It is used in structures where there are no fittings, as this can cause corrosion.
2. NK + M, NKM - mixtures of urea and calcium nitrate.
3. M - urea, helps to slow the setting of the mixture.
4. NNK, NK - calcium nitrate-nitrate and just calcium nitrate, accelerates the setting when pouring concrete in frost.

   Has anti-corrosion effect, is poisonous.

5. NK - calcium nitrate, can change the hardening time.
6. KK is calcium carbonate, and concrete with it will set well even at -30 degrees.

And we have come to the last variety, and then you will learn how to make a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands.

Super plasticizers

Most people are interested in what super plasticizers are.

Such additives are organic / synthetic substances of the anionic type with a large number of polar groups and mixtures thereof. Such plasticizers in mortar help to extend the life of the mortar, increase the mobility of concrete up to 4 times. Thanks to its use, concrete begins to harden quickly after the hydration time has slowed down. The effect is short-term - 2 or 3 hours. Hydrated neoplasms will grow in number, since water and cement will increase the surface of interaction due to the fusion of the surface of active substances.

Based on the total mass of cement, the limit of the content of additives is from 0.7 to 1.5%. For cements of a high-aluminate type, the dose must necessarily be higher, since the final mobility of concrete will depend on this factor. Using a super plasticizer will save you up to 50kg / m ³ .

In addition, the strength characteristics are increased by up to 1/4.

Additives of the first group are used in precast factories to create the required workability of the mixture. Production costs are reduced, the set of strength and speed of molds is accelerated. Super plasticizer C-3 and substances similar to it are an aqueous solution of salt, which contains from 30 to 40% of dry product. The latter is obtained from sulfuric acid and naphthalene.

Manufacturing rules

Plasticizing additives should be added to concrete or mortar in strict accordance with the proportions and the sequence of introduction:

1. Polyvinyl acetate glue can only be poured into ready-mixed concrete. The ingress of moisture into the solution will become less if a glass of PVA glue is poured onto a bucket of concrete solution.
2. The hardness threshold is higher due to the fact that hydration slows down when you add from 100 to 150 grams of washing powder to 1 bag of cement when mixing the composition. The powder should be diluted in water in advance.
3. For internal work in the building, take a 1 to 1 ratio of cement and hydrated lime.

   For facade plastering, you will need a mixture that contains 20% lime. The seams will be smoother, the uniformity of the application will be better, and it will be much easier to carry out complex manipulations with the concrete mortar. Also, its stickiness will be an order of magnitude higher. The concrete will become more elastic, and, among other things, the composition will have high bactericidal properties.

4. The mortar can harden up to 2 hours faster if, when mixing, 1 cup (i.

   e. 200 grams) of liquid soap or shampoo is added to 1 bag of Portland cement (50 kg).You can prepare a concrete mix in a small amount of time and in large quantities.

The fact that egg whites can be added to cement for plasticity is familiar to everyone. For city dwellers, such use of food may seem irrational.

But in rural areas where farming is common, people often use eggs (especially broken eggs) as an additive for the solution. Organic substances that are in the composition of the yolk will enable the building to stand for many centuries.

Technological features

But how to make a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands? When using self-made products or materials at hand as modifiers for masonry mortar and cement plaster,

there is a high probability of encountering such problems:

1. After As you add liquid soap or shampoo, salt will start to wash out strongly on the concrete surface. For this reason, the formation of white stains should not be ruled out.
2. Certain properties of the cement binder may be altered by additives.

   From this, the hardening time of the composition is also capable of changing, it will be much more difficult to make a forecast.

3. The conditions for mold formation will be improved due to the fact that the structure of the solution is disturbed after the introduction of soap. It will bind the liquid in the concrete and prevent it from migrating.
4. The load on the foundation may increase and the concrete will begin to gain greater density if the formation of microscopic pores within the monolith decreases. Such a process appears after the detergent is introduced into the solution.

   This will cause the mixture to set faster.

5. Modification additives may not produce the desired effect if not injected on time. This must be done at the beginning of the batch, since the alkaline medium that will be obtained from the soap can freely change the properties of the mixture.
6. Foam appears more often and stronger when used as a detergent additive and mixed in an electric concrete mixer. The process of preparing the solution should be interrupted from time to time so that the foam settles.

When difficulties arise, it makes sense to switch to the use of plasticizers that were manufactured in industrial production.

How it works

To use additives correctly, you need to understand how they work. The components of the mixture, which are considered as a system having the same composition and qualities, and separated from other elements by means of a separation surface, are a phase. Sand, water, cement, which are in the standard set of the mixture, in the role of solids are also considered a separate phase of the thermodynamic type. The specific surface area of ​​the particles will increase with decreasing size.

In turn, with an increase in the surface of the interaction elements, the quality of chemical reactions will increase.

The components of the mortar are fine dusty cement and relatively coarse sand; when mixing, water is added to them. Adhesion forces acting at the interface in the surface layer of water will create surface tension. This will lead to heterogeneous and incomplete wetting of the cement with difficult spreading of the liquid. Surface active agents can be used to improve processes and reduce their time.

With the same amount of water, the viscosity of the solution will become much higher, and the specific surface of the cement will be higher. This is possible if fine particles of the fraction are formed in the mixture due to the decay of large particles during the neutralization of an electric charge with different polarity. The possibility of changing the hydration rate should be considered separately for different solutions and additives. Different types of substances and cement will not react in the same way.

What can replace

In large cities like Moscow or St.

Petersburg, it will not be difficult to buy any of the supplements inexpensively. When working in remote regions and there are no additives on sale, you can get out of the situation differently. How to make a plasticizer for concrete with your own hands?

Add the following substances to the concrete solution as modifiers:

1. To impart water-repellent properties, increase strength and mobility add PVA glue. For 10 liters of mixture, 0.2-0 is required.

   25 kg of glue.

2. Another option for replacing the factory plasticizer is to add slaked lime. It should be mixed into concrete, but not more than 20% of the total. In this case, you will reduce the likelihood of cracking, the plasticity will be higher. If we are talking about paving slabs, then it will become more resistant to sudden temperature changes, the surface will be flat, durable and smooth.

   Please note that other additives cannot be used when using lime.

3. Pour just a little dishwashing liquid into the solution. 12 kg of cement will require only 2 tbsp. l. facilities.

   The foam obtained upon stirring will envelop the particles of the binder and filler, making the solution elastic.

4. Use detergent to increase the flowability of the mortar. Most of the foam comes from hand wash powder. For 12 kg of cement, 2 tbsp is enough. l.

   facilities.

5. To save money, use liquid soap, which is sold in 5 liter bottles. It is better not to take the cheapest, and add 2 tbsp. To a bucket (12 kg). l.

   soap.

You can make a separate plasticizer, and not just add components when kneading.

How to make it yourself

So, to make a plasticizer for concrete, use powdered preparations that are intended for dilution.

To make a quality additive, you should:

• Take only hot water (from +70 to +90 degrees) in the quantity indicated on the label.
• Dissolve powder by adding water and mixing.

• Continue stirring constantly, let the mixture brew for a couple of hours.

The powder will be stored longer than the liquid solution, at least 2 times. Other additives should only be added after the solution is infused. Shake the prepared composition before pouring into the water. Do not forget about safety measures, use a respirator, special clothes with long sleeves, rubber gloves and goggles.