Physical and Rheological Properties of Eco-Friendly Bio-Bitumen

Abstract

The substantial increases in bitumen pricing are due to an increase in demand for petroleum derived products in line with decreasing world crude resources. It has suggested that all industries, including the asphalt pavement industry, should be exploring economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable materials either to enhance the performance of asphalt mixture using some recycled materials or developing eco-friendly asphalt mixture, considerable research efforts have been made to improve the characterization of bio-oil-bitumen. Scientific and technical developments towards improving bio-oil technically are under investigation, with an emphasis on bio-oil-bitumen upgrading research. The current study presents a new development of eco-friendly bio-oil-bitumen produced using some local materials. Two bitumen sources have penetration grades 40-50 were used, Dora and Nasiriyah, which were obtained from Dora and Nasiriyah refineries. Waste cooking oil was collected from local households and cafeterias without financial cost. Methanol, Sulfuric acid (as a catalyst), and Zeolite were considered in the development process to enhance the workability. Physical and rheological characterizations were adopted. The physical tests include viscosity, softening point, and penetration while rheological characterization involves sweep frequency and creep tests using a dynamic shear rheometer (DSR). Bio-oil was prepared by vacuum distillation after esterification of waste cooking oil. Three percentages (10%, 20%, 30%) of bio-oil were blended with aged petroleum bitumen which was obtained from aging the virgin bitumen by Thin-Film Oven Test (TFOT). It was found that II a ratio of 1:4 of bio-oil and aged petroleum bitumen exhibited the best performance. Results highlighted that the new modified bio-oil-bitumen has shown superior performance compared to that of traditional bitumen taking into consideration the influence of bio-oil percentage and level of the age of virgin bitumen . The composite of bio-oil-aged bitumen with 20% bio-oil has the optimum percentage which gives the best performance against permanent deformation, fatigue cracking, softening point, and viscosity. Furthermore, the current successful development has an encouragement to further investigation of such production.