Investigation of new additives to reduce the fume emission of bitumen during Asphalt Concrete Processing

Abstract

Pavement materials play an important role in overall pavement sustainability including material acquisition processing, and transportation. The main objective of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness of new additives, to reduce bitumen's fume emission expelled into the atmosphere, during the processing of asphalt concrete. The new additives act by trapping bitumen's volatile substances avoiding their release at high temperatures. In this paper, we have been tested the performance of 2 types of mesoporous silica-based additives (AntiSmog 1 and AntiSmog 2). The idea of using these additives to reduce the emission of fumes in bitumen has been submitted as a patent. To quantify and characterize the emitted fumes, thermogravimetry (TGA) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) technique have been used. Dynamic Shear Rheology (DSR) has been used to check the rheological properties and the possible sedimentation issues that could occur after the addition of the additives.