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Primitive Technology: Wood Ash Cement Path To Enlightenment News 3 Views • 2 years ago

Primitive Technology: Wood Ash Cement - Creating wood ash cement from scratch
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Partial credit for this idea goes to James Keane who I discussed this with on my wordpress site (see conversation): https://primitivetechnology.wordpress.com/2018/03/06/lime/#comment-9736
I developed an experimental cement from made only from re-fired wood ash as its cementitious material. It was mixed with crushed terracotta as an aggregate and formed into a cube. The cement set hard after 3 days and did not dissolve in water after this period.
Process: First I burnt bark and leaves in a kiln at high temperatures to produce well burnt, mostly white wood ash. The ash was then mixed into water and stirred well. The excess water was poured off and the resulting paste was made into pellets and allowed to dry. A pellet was then re-heated in the forge until it glowed about orange hot. This was then taken out, cooled and dropped in a pot of water. The pellet dissolved and boiled due to a chemical reaction with the water. The paste was stirred and crushed terracotta (old tiles from previous projects) was added and mixed to form a mouldable mortar. This was formed into a cube and allowed to set for three days (in the video, a cube made exactly the same way 3 days previously was used due to time constraints). The resultant cube was strong and made a slight ringing sound when tapped with a finger nail. It was placed in water for 24 hours to simulate a very heavy rain event and did not dissolve or release residues into the water.
My current theory: The main component of wood ash consists of calcium in some form (e.g. calcium carbonate, calcium oxide). This can be up to 45% from my research. Calcium is in higher concentration in the bark and leaves of a tree. When the ash is mixed with water, the soluble component of wood ash (10% pot ash) dissolves into the water. But seeing that it does nothing for the cementing process, it is drained off leaving the insoluble calcium (and other components) in the paste. Doing this probably raises the relative percentage of calcium in the paste to about 50% or more. Most of the other 50 % consists of silica and alumina which are pozzolans, materials that chemically react with calcium hydroxide to increase the durability of the cement product. The paste was then made into a pellet and fired again to high temperature to convert all the calcium compounds to calcium oxide. It also reduces any charcoal in the pellet to ash if it hadn’t already been burnt the first time. This step seemed important as un-fired ash pellets only partially hardened and would fall apart in water, though retaining a weak undissolved 5mm thick crust. I can only surmise that re-firing the ash just gave a greater conversion of the calcium components to calcium oxide. The pellet is slaked in water converting the calcium oxide to calcium hydroxide. This cement was mixed with crushed terracotta which may also help in some way that I’m not aware of as I only did this one experiment and did not test other aggregates yet (e.g. sand, gravel etc.). Terracotta is porous and might hold together better than other materials. The mixture is allowed to set in air where carbon dioxide reacts with calcium hydroxide to form calcium carbonate cementing the aggregate together. After this, the cement will not dissolve in water.
Use: I think this material might have a potential use as a mortar holding rocks or bricks together in wet environments where limestone or snail shells are unavailable for making cement. Wood ash is a pretty ubiquitous material to most natural environments inhabited by people using biomass fuels. Wood ash cement turns a waste product into a valuable building material. From my research, wood ash is already being used as a partial replacement for cement in the building industry without decreases in strength of the final product. But I’ve only just started experimenting with it and don’t know its full capabilities and limitations. Calcium content of wood ash differs depending on the species of tree, the part of the tree burnt and the soil it’s grown on. Cautious experimentation is still required before committing to a hut built from this material.

Primitive Technology: Wood Ash Cement & Fired Brick Hut Path To Enlightenment News 3 Views • 2 years ago

Primitive Technology: Wood Ash Cement & Fired Brick Hut
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About This Video:
I built a hut from fired clay bricks and mortared them together with a cement made from wood ash left over from the firing process. When I developed wood ash cement years ago in a previous video, it was in response to the need of a cement made from material other than lime stone, which is absent in my location. Wood ash was suitable because it contains calcium oxide, the active cementitious material for making mortar. I made clay bricks and fired them in a kiln made previously. Then I collected the wood ash and made them into pellets storing them for later use. When it was time to make the mortar, I put the pellets in the kiln and fired them. Here it's important to note that the ash needs to be fired at a high temperature with oxygen, ordinary ash from a camp fire won't work as is because they don't get hot enough. It needs to be pelletized and fired again in a kiln before use. I mixed the fired ash pellets with sand (1:3 ratio by volume) and used it to mortar the bricks together. It's important to use a trowel (flat piece of wood here) instead of bare hands to handle the mortar due to lye burning the skin (I got mild lye burns on my fingers). The ash left over from firing the bricks was enough to mortar those same bricks together. The hut was 2x2 m and 2 m high at the gables. Wooden beams were placed onto the gables to form the roof and secured in place with mortar. Then I made barrel roof tiles and lay them onto these beams. The whole project took 6 and a half months to build. The hut sheds rain well and the mortar is water proof (won't dissolve in water), surviving many rainstorms even before the roof was up. The main take away from this video is to always look for a way to take a waste material (wood ash) and make it into a resource (cement).

About Primitive Technology:
Primitive technology is a hobby where you build things in the wild completely from scratch using no modern tools or materials. These are the strict rules: If you want a fire, use a fire stick - An axe, pick up a stone and shape it - A hut, build one from trees, mud, rocks etc. The challenge is seeing how far you can go without utilizing modern technology. I do not live in the wild, but enjoy building shelter, tools, and more, only utilizing natural materials. To find specific videos, visit my playlist tab for building videos focused on pyrotechnology, shelter, weapons, food & agriculture, tools & machines, and weaving & fiber.

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