ASAP · Advanced Solutions for Asphalt Pavements

Advanced Solutions for Asphalt Pavements

Bitumen is key component (material) of an asphalt pavement. It binds the rock skeleton of the asphalt pavement and allow it to sustain external loads, such as: traffic load, environmental factors (rain, snow, ice, sun) and restore its damage. Bitumen modifiers can improve or restore the physical and mechanical performance of bitumen. Bitumen modifiers have traditionally been produced from produced from crude oil, such as: soft bitumen and styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS). As the environmental and financial costs of crude oil extraction increase and production declines, there is a need to identify more environmentally sustainable alternatives. Bitumen modifiers produced with bio-based sources offer an environmentally friendly and economically viable alternative. Recent studies have demonstrated that plant-based products, such as vegetable oil can also be used as a bitumen modifier. While this offers a cheap alternative to crude oil in the production of bitumen modifiers, diverting food sources (or potential food sources) into asphalt production is unsustainable and ethically questionable, given the increased pressure on food resources globally. Biomass offers a promising alternative to crude oil in the production of bitumen and bitumen modifiers. Biomass is a renewable bio-material source which uses industrial by-products and secondary materials to produce bitumen modifiers and/or rejuvenators A recent EU report which identified 100 radical innovations for the future named the recovery of nutrients from wastewater as one and self-healing technology as another. The ASAP project combined these two radical innovations. Cultivating microalgae via the wastewater purification process adds another environmental benefit to the ASAP project and could help the EU asphalt industry to tackle UN Global challenges, such as: Goal. 6: Clean Water and Sanitation and Goal. 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. The technology developed by ASAP could reduce the carbon footprint of the road industry. The ASAP project identified a new, eco-friendly, sustainable aged bitumen rejuvenator from microalgae biomass and neat bitumen modifier from bacteria originating from the waste water sludge via 3 key objectives: i)Identification of the most suitable and environmentally friendly method of biomass processing– in order to produce aged bitumen bio-rejuvenator. ii)Evaluation of the microalgae asphalt bitumen rejuvenator and PHBV bitumen polymer modifier – via a programme of intensive testing: a) within aged bitumen only and b) as healing agent in the asphalt self-healing system iii)Development of a numerical rejuvenator/aged binder diffusion model.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union