EP #104: Tackling Concrete's Fly Ash Problem

Seth (00:01.661)
Welcome to another episode of the Concrete Logic Podcast. Today I have Joe Shetterly with E5 with me, and we're going to talk about liquid fly ash. But before we get started, just to remind everyone how the podcast works, I ask you if you want to support the podcast to do three things. So the first thing is to share this episode or any of the episodes. We're over a hundred episodes now.

Joe Shetterley (00:27.811)
you

Seth (00:31.773)
shared the episode with a coworker or colleague or someone out there that needs to be hit over the head with something. and then the second way is if you go to concrete logic podcast.com, you can reach out to me a couple of ways. One is there's a, there's a contact button or link. You click on that. That's like sending me an email or in the bottom right hand corner, there's a little microphone.

You click on that and that's like leaving me a voicemail and what I'm looking for are topic or guest suggestions for episodes because that's what this podcast is all about. I do this podcast for you all who are listening. so please reach out and give me, suggestions. And then the last way is if you want to, if you get some value, this podcast is based on a value for value model, which is basically saying I provide you the podcast.

folks like Joe come on and donate their time and, and share their knowledge with you. And if that is, it's a value to you. What I ask is that you give a value back. You click on the donate button that's on the, the, on the homepage and you can give any amount and any amount is appreciated. All right. I did it under two minutes. That must've been a good cup of coffee this morning. So Joe,

Joe Shetterley (01:54.274)
Ha ha ha.

Seth (01:57.343)
You were last on the episode or on the podcast, episode number 28, November 3rd, 2022. So almost two years ago. Yes, sir. So I appreciate you coming back on. And the first time we came in, you came on the show, we were, I think we talked mostly about internal curing. and, which was.

Joe Shetterley (02:10.071)
It was two years.

Joe Shetterley (02:22.912)
Mm-hmm.

Seth (02:26.441)
Back then it was new to me. So I'm two years of following along and very interested in internal carrying. But today I wanted to bring you on and talk about liquid fly ash technology. So if you could, I guess, start off, what's the difference between liquid fly ash and the fly ash that we all know and love? I don't know if we love it. We don't love it. I was just being sarcastic.

You

Joe Shetterley (02:57.366)
Liquid fly ash was branded the name to cause controversy because this industry doesn't really like to sit around and have a conversation about things. So when I was on the bridge and we were putting this together, I thought I'm going to name this liquid fly ash. And one of my consultants says, you can't do that. I said, yes, I can. Because if liquid nail can name

Seth (03:03.593)
Yeah.

Joe Shetterley (03:24.556)
their substance liquid nail and it's not a nail, I can say liquid fly ash even though I'm not liquid fly ash. It's a conversation piece, but it does have characteristics of traditional fly ash. And what I mean by characteristics, CH consumption, it has a high pozzolanic reaction. Those are characteristics of an SCM. So liquid fly ash is

not flash, we've established that it hasn't had flash, it's nano silica particles and suspension. And it is suspended with different particle sizes, shapes, polarity, things like that to give it a function as a liquid SEM.

Seth (04:11.401)
So same technology that we talked about before as the internal care. So what's different about it versus the internal care?

Joe Shetterley (04:15.0)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (04:22.008)
So the difference between internal cure and LFA is that internal cure has a narrow particle band of silica. So it is much narrow in size and shape, meaning it's more repeatable. And that allows for attraction to water where liquid fly ash has a wider band of particle distribution. And it can fill into gaps smaller and bigger for those CH site, for CH consumption.

So calcium hydroxide, it reacts with the byproduct of the cement hydration.

Seth (04:52.159)
CH and what's CH?

Okay.

Seth (05:01.639)
Okay. And I was going to ask you, so what is the problem we're trying to solve Joe? Why is, why you call it liquid fly ash? Why do we use fly ash? What's the problem we're trying to all solve here?

Joe Shetterley (05:17.282)
Well, the problem I was solving first was I was on a bridge and the ReadyMix supplier was not happy that day because he had six trucks rejected because of air issues. Well, they were using a F-Ash at the time and it was just very unstable. Well, the owner of the ReadyMix company come by and says, I am so sick of these SCMs. And he was just complaining about it. And I thought, hmm.

My, that is an issue. Six trucks go back, so a lot of money. This got to be dumped. Not only a lot of money, but it's 60 cubic yards that's going on the ground somewhere. Well, how's that good for the environment? It's not. So I'm like, well, we need our F ashes and our C ashes are not the same as they used to be when they came out. They're not as the quality is not there anymore. So that was the one problem.

Why I started going down that trail of liquid fly ash was to help the air issue. Second was finishers do not like to finish SCMs, whether it's fly ash, slag, because interior wise, it can delay the set, increase bleed rates. You can get differential drying. You can actually get spikes in air in an interior mix that sometimes makes your sticky and delaminate because of the properties that are in some of these.

SEMs are not as pure as they used to be. So those are the problems I'm solving by using a liquid pozzolin to help stabilize that and give back the matrix of the concrete that an SEM will give a good structure. SEMs give a good structure, I should say, in a matrix of concrete, a denser, harder structure over time. And over time means after 28 days of that period.

So liquid fly ash, wanted to build to increase all those properties within the 28 days, but not give concrete finishers the problems that they would have finishing it. And then the owner benefits from all those internal benefits long-term for his return on his investment. So those are all the problems I was trying to solve with liquid fly ash. I see it every day on bridge pours.

Seth (07:23.516)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (07:39.458)
When people start to use the LFA and internal cure mix together on a bridge, it's like a light bulb goes over their head and they're like, where's this been? Well, cause they have fought so many years of using extremely dry mixes with a unreliable SEM and it's sticky, it's fighting it. The air is all over the place. got engineers that are aggravated cause they're chasing air.

It's 8 % on one truck goes to 5 % on another, and then they're dosing it back and forth to where LFA stabilizes all that. They're not chasing the air because it's more pure. It's a more pure form of a positive one versus an unreliable purity. That's all the problems I was solving.

Seth (08:25.373)
Gotcha. So is the, so we were using fly ash or slag, those SEMs to offset the amount of cement that we're using because of the global warming potential or whatever, metrics that you're, we're all being served right now. Anyways. So are you, are you saying, so if some calls for a certain amount of fly ash or slag, are you completely replacing that? So no longer having.

flat flash or slag in the mix.

Joe Shetterley (08:59.072)
I would say at the beginning of the launch of LFA, I'd made a couple of mistakes. As concrete finishers, we're very brazen. We're not easy to adopt to changes. We seem to know everything sometimes as concrete finishers, and we're hard headed. I basically stepped out there and said, no, I can replace it all. Well, that was my first mistake by making that claim.

Second was pushing it forward in that manner and I had to correct some of them. And what I mean by correcting them is certain cement do certain things and not all cements are cements. And the cements, the way they're built have another reaction with the SCMs. I didn't have that knowledge. I just seen the LFA work from two or three different cements and it was able to reduce that cement.

and was able to go on. And when I stepped out and started using a different cement from a different geographical area, it all went away. Well, then I had to start incorporating back some of the SEM back in with combination of LFA and everything would come back into compliance because the cement was missing something that the other SEM that was powderized gave back to the cement and in mine just made everything come back into effect more efficient.

So instead of a 30 % F-ash, they could reduce it down to 10 % and then use me at eight ounces per hundred weight. Now what that did was pick all that risk, that extra 20 % of fly ash, bring it down to 10%. I lowered all the problematic issues with the F-ash. We still had stabilized air. We still had consistent set times. We had consistent bleed rates and we had consistent set times.

So it's like, all right, this is a SEM enhancer or replacer. It can do either one, but it's really dependent on your cement.

Seth (11:06.097)
Yeah. So you gotta, you gotta do testing and yeah.

Joe Shetterley (11:09.536)
Yes. what I do is when a producer starts to work with me, I say, me five gallon bucket of your cement. go to my lab and Dr. Neelu goes in and she does her mortar cube samples and we start taking all the problems out and figure out where they're at so that they don't have to do that guesswork. So I've got buckets of cement all over the lab.

I've probably got 15 different ones and we know now we got a protocol. We come in, hit the one day break, three days, seven. We already know what it's going to do within a week. And then that producer can like, all right, this is where I'd start. And then, you know, within his week, a seven day testing, he already knows where to go.

Seth (11:53.073)
In that five gallon bucket, is it just the cement or do if there it's a fly ash or a Slack mix, do they send that to you too or.

Joe Shetterley (11:58.83)
They'll send me their fly ashes or their slags with it. As slag is going up in cost, it's just as much as cement. So it's kind of like why, I mean, if it causes these few little issues in the finishing process, why even go to it? Just go with the cement, roll with an LFA, and then all your finishing and all your workability and all your sustainability, all that comes into the same play.

Seth (12:09.684)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (12:28.184)
problems are reduced in the field at the finishing level. Which is what we're always arguing about is the problems at the finishing level.

Seth (12:38.451)
Yeah. Finishing and breaks and cracking.

Joe Shetterley (12:41.55)
Yes.

He put too much water in. he didn't do this.

Seth (12:48.115)
Yeah, but yeah, definitely finishes. the, the, the look, seems to be, a topic for me recently is, someone wasn't happy with the finish quality. so yeah, it's got a lot to do with it. Even though you can meet, you can meet at all the specs, but the, the look was more of the concern.

Joe Shetterley (13:15.918)
Yeah. You get that aesthetic, aesthetic conversation going on. Well, I mean, it meets all the criteria, strength, flatness, all the stuff's met. Then, you know, I can't help this way. It turned out materials material. I mean, was blessed enough and raised in an era where I seen fly ash come in the real stuff in 1987, 88, 89, 90, 93. seen the F ashes and see as come in. Well.

Seth (13:19.453)
Uh-huh.

Seth (13:23.71)
Yep.

Seth (13:29.768)
Right.

Joe Shetterley (13:46.41)
Instantly when that stuff come in, was already, we've seen bleed rates where we were taking garden hoses and dragging the water off of the slab. It's like, where'd this come from? It's like, but then they claim, it helps reduce bleed water. You might want to come out here because it's not. Well, if it's not reactive, it doesn't have reactivity then, and you've replaced that with cement that has reactivity, then yeah, there's, there's a problem coming up somewhere.

Seth (13:57.094)
huh.

Seth (14:03.955)
Yeah

Joe Shetterley (14:16.386)
Well, bleed rates where I seen it come in first hand in my finishing days in the late 80s, early 90s. So then I, my dad put a stop to it and said, there will be no flash mixes in our mix designs at all whatsoever. Even engineers would call for them. We would run a submittal and say, no, we want a straight bag mix and we are not dealing with this. Cause over time people stay late on jobs cause the set times. Same thing, sending trucks back because of air.

Seth (14:16.402)
Right.

Joe Shetterley (14:46.05)
that causes contractors money. I wanted to build a liquid Pozzolin that would satisfy the engineer and all the requirements that Pozzolin was going to give him, but yet took care of the finisher in the field.

And that's where LFE, that's why it was built.

Seth (15:00.467)
Yeah.

Seth (15:05.405)
Yeah, that's the one you're talking about when the fly ashes came on saying it really, really sounds like what's going on right now with type 1L.

Joe Shetterley (15:13.39)
Absolutely. And I got two specific projects I've worked on in the last two months where the engineer had spec 25 % fly ash and they go to do, and he even had E5 internal cure in the spec. Well, we did the first pour and we go down there and there was this massive random of cracking. It's like, my gosh, what happened? Well, we start going back, well, to our earlier conversation.

Water demand wasn't met. It was too dry. Second, the internal cure did its job, but what was happened, the water wasn't distributed enough in that mix. The fly ash wasn't able to wet out, so it robbed more water. And then the cement wasn't wetting out because of the fineness of the vits. So they had this lack of water going on. It's like, all right, what do we do? So they asked me and I said,

Seth (15:44.691)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (16:12.334)
This is my personal opinion. Do a side-by-side. Do that mix again on a 20 by 20, but then I want you to replace all your fly ash with liquid fly ash. And let's see what happens. Well, they did it. They had the same issues on that slab with a traditional fly ash. They used the LFA in combination with the IC. All the cracks were gone. They ended up finishing the whole job with it. No more cracks. So there's this dynamic.

between 1L fineness and the finenesses of the F-ash and the other components of the F-ash that don't like to work with each other. What that is right now, there's research ongoing what that is. And I hope to know that in the next nine months to 12 months, but there's a weird water exchange between those two products together that's helping cracking. What's the word I'm looking for? It's producing cracking more or less.

And I don't know if it's because of the delay sets, because one else can be a little bit slow and delay. And you got this weird dynamic going on. But then another one was a parking garage. We had a parking garage, same thing. Had 30 % F-ash in. Had internal cure-spect. They sent me a picture before they had it finished. It hadn't even finished. It looked like someone dropped a metal ball in the middle of the slab and it just cracked everywhere. All over. And I'm like, my gosh, what happened?

Seth (17:35.389)
Ugh.

Joe Shetterley (17:39.278)
Someone fall. Well, we did an investigation. They said, what's the recommendation? I said, well.

Nah, but I'm going to promote it. I'm going say I get rid of the fly ash. I said, I think it's an issue. Too many fines. Not enough, not enough way to balance water out. Well, they went to the LFA mix, what we call the Indiana DOT mix, LFA internal cure. And they ended up finishing that whole parking garage with that mix. No more cracking from that point on. So the SEMs we have today are just not

reliable as they used to be and it goes back to water. LFA, eternal cure, either product helps water move. One's more pozzolanic reaction, the other one's a high control of water. But if we don't have control of the water within a mix with these thirsty SEMs and the thirsty 1L, you're just beating your head against the wall with traditional ways of doing things.

Seth (18:44.903)
Yeah, that seems to be the common denominator there is the water, how the water's behaving between the two. I would say both are fairly new materials, the new fly ash and the new cement. And we're just moving right along with the same water cement ratios as you and I were talking before we hit record over a hundred years now. But we have totally new, new

Joe Shetterley (19:07.522)
Right.

Seth (19:14.707)
binder material

Joe Shetterley (19:16.632)
Yeah, the binder materials are thirstier, finer. Some of them are not as reactive as they used to be. And when we've already incorporated a limestone that is not as reactive of the clinker we replaced, mean, you just increased your risk of cracking. Because we do want that concrete to react at a rate

that it overcomes the strain that we've put it in. if you don't have enough water for these products and they rob your water, well, you've created a internal, tautanus cracking situation, and then it shows up external. One of the big things I try to tell people to grab their heads around,

Think of concrete no different than the human body. Okay, the human body, if it has something going on internally, it eventually shows up where? External. It's just the way it works. Concrete's no different. If the external problems are there and you can't see them and there's not enough water to help, it shows up where? External. And what do we go do?

We try to fix the external real quick with something external. Well, let's go put a topical on, let's go put a densifier on. Well, let's do this, let's do that. And I'm going, you know, all your problems internal. So if you start with internally controlling the problem, which I'm going say it a hundred times, it's all about curing. And if you can get that first initial step done by controlling the water internally for that to develop correctly,

I don't care what you do. It's all going in the basket and we're all arguing about it in months. You've got to start it off there. Same way with your body. Give it some water, give it the hydration and externally your skin glows. It doesn't, it's more flexible. You look healthier. Why? Because you fixed it internally and then your external shines. I look at concrete, no different. Same thing.

Seth (21:28.851)
Alright.

Seth (21:33.929)
There's a, there's a, there's a supplement line there. I'm hearing.

Joe Shetterley (21:37.99)
yes, E5. And no joke, GNC does sell, I don't work for them by the way, but GNC does sell a colloidal silica pill. Yes, they do.

Seth (21:50.931)
Do they really?

think I've taken everything else under the moon. haven't done that one yet. Huh. Huh. Somebody beat us to it, Joe.

Joe Shetterley (21:54.734)
Yep, do sell it.

yes sir.

Seth (22:04.967)
yeah, so there's, yeah, do you, again, going back to what you're saying, we, we only treat the, you know, the top one inch of concrete. And although there's another, you know, six, maybe nine inches of concrete that we're not treating, and yeah, it all, it all rises to the surface. yeah, those were all great points. So.

Joe Shetterley (22:20.024)
Yep.

Seth (22:33.267)
So yeah, I really think, you know, just listening to you and our conversation here, it's really about balancing. It seems like balancing the water.

Joe Shetterley (22:42.528)
Absolutely. And that's the one thing Seth, think about in your career too. mean, everything's been driven off low water cement ratios, low water cement ratios, get the strength up. Well, that's great. I'm glad you got strength, but at the rate our concrete is failing right now, that's not the right data point we should be looking at. What we should be looking at is what's going on internally so it develops external.

And strength's not the answer. The more strength doesn't mean, my God, I got great concrete. I've seen concrete 8, 10,000 psi fall apart faster than I've seen sidewalks poured with 3,000 psi. Well, what's the difference? Well, first of all, we'll go back to my Bible, concrete manual. Everything started with a wet care back then, and everything was controlled at decent water cement ratios.

Seth (23:26.239)
Yeah.

Seth (23:33.545)
Yeah. Okay.

Joe Shetterley (23:42.19)
And at this timeframe, this was written in 1963, Duff Abrams had only been around, that law was about 50, 60 years old. So the finesses of the cement were still somewhat the same as what he created that law with. And then now we fast forward way up here, we're 120 some years away and our finesses of our cement are way up here now, 100 % different than what he was. And yet we're still trying to fight it with the same water.

Seth (23:50.409)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (24:11.854)
The math don't work. Even with the fly ashes and the slags, the metakalins, the silica fumes, the pumice, all those materials are ultra fine, ultra aggressive and want water. They're very thirsty material. Well, with that thirsty material, if you're using the same water-submit ratio and you incorporate a percentage of those in, well, you just went from a 4.0 to a 3.6.

Seth (24:13.598)
Right.

Joe Shetterley (24:41.144)
You just put your concrete into a cracking potential because you didn't give it enough water in the first place. You have to understand the water demand of the product and be able to say water demands X. I'm putting an extra five gallons in, but it's not going to count against my water cement ratio. That's where the industry has got to be okay with accepting something like that. But I don't know who's going to be that champion to stand up there and prove that that's what needs to be done. Cause I'm a concrete finisher.

from Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm an expert at nanotechnology. I know what that piece does, but I'm not an expert in the water cement ratio game and how that needs to be proven out. I've got a good concept of it. I know how it works with nanoparticles, but outside of nanoparticles, that's a much bigger endeavor for someone.

Seth (25:32.447)
Yeah. And I don't necessarily know if it's just the water submit ratio. Again, it's trying to figure out if the, if the, if like the, the, the water's balanced across that nine or 10 yards are getting into that truck. how do someone's got to come up with a way to measure that the water is dispersed equally across the board. Cause when you put all this stuff that we're

Joe Shetterley (25:51.043)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (25:59.534)
Yeah.

Seth (25:59.871)
To say nicely the stuff that we're putting in cement and and and the fly ash and what's making up our concrete now is What what I'm thinking and what I'm hearing from you is it sounds like the water is not getting to all parts of that of that load and so you're gonna have a truck That may be the the first the first half

is okay, but the back half of that truck is garbage. And then you're putting it down on the floor. So you got a section that looks fantastic, finishes great. And then the other section you got, like, what do they call that? They got the pock face looking thing. Yeah, that or the, the, where it's not a

Joe Shetterley (26:30.253)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Shetterley (26:45.346)
the crazy?

Seth (26:55.251)
delaminating but it kind of looks like it's got the surface popped off of it. Yeah. See. Yeah. Seeing that.

Joe Shetterley (26:59.806)
Blisters it'll do little blisters little pops

Well, when I was out in the field and I'm watching things, you can always tell when they haven't really properly done their aggregate moistures or they're not watching them close enough. The first take a hundred yard pour. Well, the first three or four or five trucks come in, they're ultra dry. Well, what's everybody doing on the job site? Put water in it, trying to get to that five, six inch slump, whatever they're trying to achieve. Well, you've just broke the hydration chain.

Seth (27:28.036)
huh.

Joe Shetterley (27:35.362)
when you added that water to it. straight goes down, got my five inch slump, but you should have had it done correctly at the plant, not on the job site. I always tried to make sure when my concrete truck was entering my job sites, if I wanted a six inch slump on the site, I always worked with my producer, say, look, you can batch it at a seven. I don't care what you batch it at. I want it batched wetter. So when it drives,

and it's starting to hydrate all that materials using up the water where it needs. By the time it got to me, it was a six inch slump. So my guys never added water to disturb the hydration process. Now, did I do that my whole career? Heck no. When did I learn to do that? Soon as I started dealing with nanoparticles, started to understand hydration, how to control water, how those things I was doing was wrong, but no one taught me.

I don't even think the industry teaches anybody that it's about the hydration and the continuum of the hydration and not disrupting that gives you the ultimate concrete durability, sustainability and strength. Just don't disrupt it once it started. Once that water hits that truck, it is started. Leave it, you're done. But then we disrupt it somewhere. Where do we disrupt it? Job site, on the way to temper the load. Why?

Seth (28:53.255)
Yeah.

Joe Shetterley (29:00.684)
because we don't understand that the materials we're dealing with need a certain amount of water and it's robbing our mixed water to go, that's mean it's robbing our mixed water, taking away from our hydration. And then we add more water because we didn't factor in what those materials need or the water demand of those materials. we're actually as smart as we have, smart as people we have in the entire industry. I'm still complexed of all the problems we still have.

There are some smart individuals in this concrete industry, but yet, we still got the same problems we've been dealing with for a hundred years. Why? Why that's...

Seth (29:41.661)
because they all, they have, they all have their individual, goals. They're in, they don't line across the board. I mean, you could take that across the side society as a whole. But anyway, do know when you're talking like this too, is, you in your, in your mixes, are you still using high, high range water reducer?

Joe Shetterley (29:46.691)
Yes.

Joe Shetterley (29:51.342)
Ehh

Joe Shetterley (30:02.126)
reduced significantly because I want when someone when a producer when I say I want a four or five water cement ratio I want a four or five I don't want my producer holding back back a couple gallons so he can sell me a high range when he didn't give me all my water give me my water I want you to give me all the water that mix is supposed to have if it says 31 gallons of water don't give me 30 because you didn't check your moisture

Seth (30:04.02)
Yeah.

Seth (30:21.448)
Uh-huh.

Joe Shetterley (30:30.862)
I want 31 gallons and then you can adjust that with your high range or your mid range. Okay. Then I always had less chemical because I'm a concrete finisher, not a chemical finisher. I want concrete and the less chemical I can put in it, the more success I had. Chemicals is killing our industry. I'm straight up. It's killing our industry. And that's why we're arguing all the time. And

We've got to get back to a more holistic look of materials versus the traditional mindset of chemical, chemical fixes, chemicals are not going to fix it. Water and water control will fix our mixes. That's what's going to fix it. Nanoparticles, no matter if it's E5 or titanium dioxide or graphene, anything in the nano world is going to start helping us better.

Seth (31:13.705)
Yeah.

Joe Shetterley (31:27.83)
because of how fine our materials are getting and how water demanding our materials are getting. They will help and it is the future. Nanoparticles are the future. I've said this many times, I traditional admixtures, I believe before I die will almost be obsolete.

Seth (31:49.339)
I believe it. mean, I think, yeah, cause he did cement's not going to go back. So you get, you gotta, you gotta fix the, fix that problem.

Joe Shetterley (31:54.115)
That's right.

Joe Shetterley (31:57.742)
And what's coming up is the Nano World.

Seth (32:01.49)
or smaller.

Joe Shetterley (32:03.114)
yes, or smaller. Yes, we will.

Seth (32:04.893)
And we'll leave it at that. We'll leave them at that. We'll get up smaller. yeah. So things are going to get smaller than nanos. So we'll, we'll, we'll leave the episode at that. Joe, if folks want to reach out to you, learn, learn more about what you're doing, what's the best way.

Joe Shetterley (32:16.252)
Ha ha.

Joe Shetterley (32:23.522)
Best way is go to our website www.e5nanosilica.com or you can reach my cell phone 317-440-1157.

Seth (32:35.785)
Cool. I appreciate that. Thank you for coming back on the show and folks until next time, let's keep it concrete.