Development of functional carbon nanotubes -asphalt composites

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to prepare asphalt composites containing CNTs and to elucidate the characteristic properties of CNTs-dispersed asphalt composites. In the present study, such composites were prepared using several types of asphalt emulsions as a binder. As a result, both nonionic and anionic emulsions kept dispersed state, when combined with as-prepared CNTs. However, cationic emulsions failed to keep dispersed state. After several additional systematic experiments, it was found that cationic emulsion successfully retained an adequate dispersion state, when as-prepared CNTs were treated with acid solution and the following incremental addition of the pretreated CNTs. The three types of CNTs-asphalt composites demonstrated higher performances in both penetration and microwave-absorption tests than asphalt composites including carbon black powder instead of CNTs, when the mass percentage of all carbon materials was the same. © 2012, International Journal of GEOMATE.