Bioasphalt

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Bioasphalt is an asphalt alternative made from non-petroleum based renewable resources.

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These sources include sugar, molasses and rice, corn and potato starches, natural tree and gum resins, natural latex rubber and vegetable oils, lignin, cellulose, palm oil waste, coconut waste, peanut oil waste, canola oil waste, dried sewerage effluent and so on. [1] Bitumen can also be made from waste vacuum tower bottoms produced in the process of cleaning used motor oils, which are normally burned or dumped into land fills. [2]

Non-petroleum based bitumen binders can be colored, which can reduce the temperatures of road surfaces and reduce the Urban heat islands. [3]

Petroleum, environmental, and heat concerns

Because of concerns over Peak oil, pollution and climate change, as well the oil price increases since 2003, non-petroleum alternatives have become more popular. This has led to the introduction of biobitumen alternatives that are more environmentally friendly and nontoxic.

For millions of people living in and around cities, heat islands are of growing concern. This phenomenon describes urban and suburban temperatures that are 1 to 6 °C (1.8 to 10.8 °F) hotter than nearby rural areas. Elevated temperatures can impact communities by increasing peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, air pollution levels, and heat-related illness and mortality. There are common-sense measures that communities can take to reduce the negative effects of heat islands, such as replacing conventional black asphalt road surfaces with the new pigmentable bitumen that gives lighter colors. [4] [5]

History and implementation

Asphalt made with vegetable oil based binders was patented by Colas SA in France in 2004. [6] [7]

A number of homeowners seeking an environmentally friendly alternative to asphalt for paving have experimented with waste vegetable oil as a binder for driveways and parking areas in single-family applications. The earliest known test occurred in 2002 in Ohio, where the homeowner combined waste vegetable oil with dry aggregate to create a low-cost and less polluting paving material for his 200-foot driveway. After five years, he reports the driveway is performing as well or better than petroleum-based materials.[ citation needed ]

Shell Oil Company paved two public roads in Norway in 2007 with vegetable-oil-based asphalt. Results of this study are still premature. [8]

HALIK Asphalts LTD from Israel has been experimenting with recycled and secondary road building since 2003. The company is using various wastes such as vegetable fats & oils, wax and thermoplastic elastomers to build and repair roads. The results reported are so far satisfying.

On October 6, 2010, a bicycle path in Des Moines, Iowa, was paved with bio-oil based asphalt through a partnership between Iowa State University, the City of Des Moines, and Avello Bioenergy Inc. Research is being conducted on the asphalt mixture, derived from plants and trees to replace petroleum-based mixes. [9] Bioasphalt is a registered trademark of Avello Bioenergy Inc.

Dr. Elham H. Fini, at North Carolina A&T University, has been spearheading research that has successfully produced bio asphalt from swine manure.

Since November 2014 the Dutch Wageningen University & Research centre is running a pilot in the Dutch province of Zeeland with bioasphalt in which the binder of bitumen was substituted by lignin. [10] [11]

In 2015, French researchers published their results about the usage of microalgaes as a source of asphalt binding material. [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitumen</span> Form of petroleum primarily used in road construction

Bitumen is an immensely viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American English, the material is commonly referred to as asphalt. Whether found in natural deposits or refined from petroleum, the substance is classed as a pitch. Prior to the 20th century, the term asphaltum was in general use. The word derives from the Ancient Greek word ἄσφαλτος (ásphaltos), which referred to natural bitumen or pitch. The largest natural deposit of bitumen in the world is the Pitch Lake of southwest Trinidad, which is estimated to contain 10 million tons.

A lubricant is a substance that helps to reduce friction between surfaces in mutual contact, which ultimately reduces the heat generated when the surfaces move. It may also have the function of transmitting forces, transporting foreign particles, or heating or cooling the surfaces. The property of reducing friction is known as lubricity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biodiesel</span> Fuel made from vegetable oils or animal fats

Biodiesel is a renewable biofuel, a form of diesel fuel, derived from biological sources like vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled greases, and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made from fats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asphalt concrete</span> Composite material used for paving

Asphalt concrete is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the twentieth century. It consists of mineral aggregate bound together with bitumen, laid in layers, and compacted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Permeable paving</span> Roads built with water-pervious materials

Permeable paving surfaces are made of either a porous material that enables stormwater to flow through it or nonporous blocks spaced so that water can flow between the gaps. Permeable paving can also include a variety of surfacing techniques for roads, parking lots, and pedestrian walkways. Permeable pavement surfaces may be composed of; pervious concrete, porous asphalt, paving stones, or interlocking pavers. Unlike traditional impervious paving materials such as concrete and asphalt, permeable paving systems allow stormwater to percolate and infiltrate through the pavement and into the aggregate layers and/or soil below. In addition to reducing surface runoff, permeable paving systems can trap suspended solids, thereby filtering pollutants from stormwater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petroleum product</span> Products ultimately derived from crude oil

Petroleum products are materials derived from crude oil (petroleum) as it is processed in oil refineries. Unlike petrochemicals, which are a collection of well-defined usually pure organic compounds, petroleum products are complex mixtures. Most petroleum is converted into petroleum products, which include several classes of fuels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biorefinery</span> Refinery that converts biomass to energy and other beneficial byproducts

A biorefinery is a refinery that converts biomass to energy and other beneficial byproducts. The International Energy Agency Bioenergy Task 42 defined biorefining as "the sustainable processing of biomass into a spectrum of bio-based products and bioenergy ". As refineries, biorefineries can provide multiple chemicals by fractioning an initial raw material (biomass) into multiple intermediates that can be further converted into value-added products. Each refining phase is also referred to as a "cascading phase". The use of biomass as feedstock can provide a benefit by reducing the impacts on the environment, as lower pollutants emissions and reduction in the emissions of hazard products. In addition, biorefineries are intended to achieve the following goals:

  1. Supply the current fuels and chemical building blocks
  2. Supply new building blocks for the production of novel materials with disruptive characteristics
  3. Creation of new jobs, including rural areas
  4. Valorization of waste
  5. Achieve the ultimate goal of reducing GHG emissions
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petroleum coke</span> Solid carbon-rich material

Petroleum coke, abbreviated coke, pet coke or petcoke, is a final carbon-rich solid material that derives from oil refining, and is one type of the group of fuels referred to as cokes. Petcoke is the coke that, in particular, derives from a final cracking process—a thermo-based chemical engineering process that splits long chain hydrocarbons of petroleum into shorter chains—that takes place in units termed coker units. Stated succinctly, coke is the "carbonization product of high-boiling hydrocarbon fractions obtained in petroleum processing ". Petcoke is also produced in the production of synthetic crude oil (syncrude) from bitumen extracted from Canada's tar sands and from Venezuela's Orinoco oil sands. In petroleum coker units, residual oils from other distillation processes used in petroleum refining are treated at a high temperature and pressure leaving the petcoke after driving off gases and volatiles, and separating off remaining light and heavy oils. These processes are termed "coking processes", and most typically employ chemical engineering plant operations for the specific process of delayed coking.

Calumet, Inc. is a publicly traded U.S.-based company that was incorporated in 1919. It specializes in the manufacture of lubricating oils, solvents, waxes, packaged and synthetic specialty products, fuels and fuel-related products. The company operates 12 production, blending, and packaging facilities across North America. This includes locations in Princeton, Cotton Valley, and Shreveport, Louisiana; Burnham, Illinois; Dickinson, Texas; Muncie, Indiana; Karns City, Pennsylvania; and Great Falls, Montana. Calumet's specialized hydrocarbon products are distributed around the world to approximately 2,700 global customers.

Heavy crude oil is highly viscous oil that cannot easily flow from production wells under normal reservoir conditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asphaltene</span> Heavy organic molecular substances that are found in crude oil

Asphaltenes are molecular substances that are found in crude oil, along with resins, aromatic hydrocarbons, and saturates. The word "asphaltene" was coined by Boussingault in 1837 when he noticed that the distillation residue of some bitumens had asphalt-like properties. Asphaltenes in the form of asphalt or bitumen products from oil refineries are used as paving materials on roads, shingles for roofs, and waterproof coatings on building foundations.

Vegetable oil can be used as an alternative fuel in diesel engines and in heating oil burners. When vegetable oil is used directly as a fuel, in either modified or unmodified equipment, it is referred to as straight vegetable oil (SVO) or pure plant oil (PPO). Conventional diesel engines can be modified to help ensure that the viscosity of the vegetable oil is low enough to allow proper atomization of the fuel. This prevents incomplete combustion, which would damage the engine by causing a build-up of carbon. Straight vegetable oil can also be blended with conventional diesel or processed into biodiesel, HVO or bioliquids for use under a wider range of conditions.

Pyrolysis oil, sometimes also known as biocrude or bio-oil, is a synthetic fuel with few industrial application and under investigation as substitute for petroleum. It is obtained by heating dried biomass without oxygen in a reactor at a temperature of about 500 °C (900 °F) with subsequent cooling, separation from the aqueous phase and other processes. Pyrolysis oil is a kind of tar and normally contains levels of oxygen too high to be considered a pure hydrocarbon. This high oxygen content results in non-volatility, corrosiveness, partial miscibility with fossil fuels, thermal instability, and a tendency to polymerize when exposed to air. As such, it is distinctly different from petroleum products. Removing oxygen from bio-oil or nitrogen from algal bio-oil is known as upgrading.

Waste oil is defined as any petroleum-based or synthetic oil that, through contamination, has become unsuitable for its original purpose due to the presence of impurities or loss of original properties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algae fuel</span> Use of algae as a source of energy-rich oils

Algae fuel, algal biofuel, or algal oil is an alternative to liquid fossil fuels that uses algae as its source of energy-rich oils. Also, algae fuels are an alternative to commonly known biofuel sources, such as corn and sugarcane. When made from seaweed (macroalgae) it can be known as seaweed fuel or seaweed oil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cellana (company)</span>

Cellana, Inc. is an American company which develops of algae-based bioproducts for high-value nutrition, ink, and bioenergy applications, including Omega-3 nutraceutical applications, sustainable ink, aquaculture and animal feeds, human food ingredients, pigments, specialty chemicals, and biofuels. The company, with offices in Hawaii and San Diego, has received multiple multimillion-dollar grants from the United States Department of Energy and United States Department of Agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nynas</span> Swedish naphthenic oil and bitumen product manufacturer

Nynas AB is a Swedish manufacturer of specialty naphthenic oils and bitumen products. Founded in 1928 as a national oil company with a traditional range of products, the company today supplies specialist products and niche markets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Automotive oil recycling</span> The process of recycling used engine and motor oils

Automotive oil recycling involves the recycling of used oils and the creation of new products from the recycled oils, and includes the recycling of motor oil and hydraulic oil. Oil recycling also benefits the environment: increased opportunities for consumers to recycle oil lessens the likelihood of used oil being dumped on lands and in waterways. For example, one gallon of motor oil dumped into waterways has the potential to pollute one million gallons of water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Demolition waste</span> Waste debris from destruction of buildings, roads, bridges, or other structures

Demolition waste is waste debris from destruction of buildings, roads, bridges, or other structures. Debris varies in composition, but the major components, by weight, in the US include concrete, wood products, asphalt shingles, brick and clay tile, steel, and drywall. There is the potential to recycle many elements of demolition waste.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cool pavement</span> Reflective road surface

Cool pavement is a road surface that uses additives to reflect solar radiation unlike conventional dark pavement. Conventional dark pavements contribute to urban heat islands as they absorb 80–95% of sunlight and warm the local air. Cool pavements are made with different materials to increase albedo, thereby reflecting shortwave radiation out of the atmosphere. Increasing albedo reduces heat transfer to the surface and can hypothetically cause local cooling if the spatial scale of the albedo reduction is sufficiently large. The EPA reports "that if pavement reflectance throughout a city were increased from 10 to 35 percent, the air temperature could potentially be reduced by 1°F (0.6°C)." Existing dark pavement can be altered to increase albedo through whitetopping or by adding reflective coats and seals. New pavement can be constructed to increase albedo by using modified mixes, permeable pavements, and vegetated pavements.

References

  1. ↑ "Asphalt compositions and products comprising tall oil derived materials, and methods for making and using same".
  2. ↑ Archived July 20, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "Basic Information | Heat Island Effect | U.S. EPA". Epa.gov. 2006-06-28. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  4. ↑ "Heat Island Effect | U.S. EPA". Epa.gov. Archived from the original on 2015-08-14. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  5. ↑ "Press Releases - February 2006 - Environmentally Sound Technology Fair Offers Innovative Solutions - United Nations Environment Programme". UNEP. Archived from the original on 2010-11-30. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  6. ↑ "Colas S.A.: Information and Much More from". Answers.com. Retrieved 2010-06-07.
  7. ↑ COLAS CST - Végécol Archived October 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Archived October 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ "Bioasphalt(R) developed at Iowa State to be used, tested on des Moines bike trail • News Service • Iowa State University".
  10. ↑ "Bioasphalt with lignin in Zeeland". www.wur.nl. 28 November 2014. Archived from the original on 26 November 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  11. ↑ EOS Wetenschap (6 October 2015). "Dit is de snelweg van de toekomst (en hij loopt door Nederland)". HP/De Tijd (in Dutch). Sas van Gent, Zeeland, The Netherlands. Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  12. ↑ Audo, Mariane; Paraschiv, Maria; Queffélec, Clémence; Louvet, Isabelle; Hémez, Julie; Fayon, Franck; Lépine, Olivier; Legrand, Jack; Tazerout, Mohand (2015-04-06). "Subcritical Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Microalgae Residues as a Green Route to Alternative Road Binders" (PDF). ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. 3 (4): 583–590. doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.5b00088. S2CID   101025379.
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