Bitumen industrial applications

The industrial applications, for which blown bitumen are very often used. Some of the industrial applications are given below ... 

Bitumen describes a black or dark brown masticlike material that is thermoplastic in nature and softens upon heating. The sources of bitumen are petroleum or coal deposits. The natural product is commonly called gilsonite or pitch, a mineral formed by an old weathered petroleum flow at the surface of the earth that has left behind the larger molecules from the petroleum. A principal source in the past has been Lake Trinidad, a 445,000 m2 deposit on the island of Trinidad. Bitumen from petroleum or crude oil is called asphalt (qv). It is the material left behind after all the valuable compounds, eg, gasolines, have been distilled out of the cmde oil. The amount and quality of asphalt is dependent on the source of the crude oil used in the refining process. Some cmde oils have a higher content of asphaltic bitumen left after the distillation process. Bitumen from coal is coal-tar pitch. It remains after the valuable coal oils and tars have been distilled out of the coal tars produced by distractive distillation. Most industrial applications for bitumen products use asphalt or coal-tar pitch because the supply is more uniform and plentiful. 

Special bitumens, according to CEN EN 12597 (2000), are bitumens manufactured by processes and from feedstocks chosen to confer special properties that meet stringent requirements for paving or industrial applications. 

The simplest reaction ofTOFA is the formation of soaps upon treatment with bases. Tall oil fatty acid soaps, such as ammonium tallate, potassium taUate, and sodium tallate are water soluble. The low proportion of saturated fatty acids allows them to be used in numerous cosmetic and personal care applications, functioning as an emulsifier or surfactant. The same applies for many industrial applications such as bitumen emulsions commonly used in roadway construction and maintenance. Asphalt emulsions are classified based on their ionic charge anionic, cationic, and nonionic. Anionic emulsions... 

Because of their wide compatibility and solubility, coumarone resins are used considerably in the paint and varnish industry. The resins also find application as softeners for plastics and rubbers such as PVC, bitumens and natural rubber. 

Speight, J.G. Asphaltenes in Crude Oil and Bitumen Structure and Dispersion in Suspensions, Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry, Schramm, L.L. (Ed.), American Chemical Society Washington, 1996, pp. 377 101. 

Methylene chloride is a volatile, colorless, nonflammable liquid. It is slightly soluble in water and miscible with many other solvents, such as acetone, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, and alcohol. Under speciflc conditions it may burn. Its commercial formulations for paint stripping are particularly flammable. Methylene chloride is a widely used solvent where quick drying (i.e., high volatility) is required. Such application areas include adhesives, cellulose acetate flber production, blowing of polyurethane foams, and metal and textile treatment. It dissolves oils, fats, waxes, many plastics, bitumen, and rubber. This property is used in paint stripper formulations. It is used as an aerosol solvent, and for extraction operations in the pharmaceutical industry. It was previously used in fire-extinguishing products. ... 

Bitumen (or asphalt), apart from being used in the production of bituminous mixtures for road construction, also has a wide range of applications, such as waterproofing, protective coatings and a range of industrial products (more than 250 Asphalt Institute MS-4 1989). 

Among several applications of emulsions the most important are listed here Food emulsion, e.g. mayonnaise, salad creams, deserts, beverages, etc. Personal care and cosmetics, e.g. hand creams, lotions, hair sprays, sunscreens, etc. Agrochemicals, e.g. self-emulsifiable oils which produce emulsions on dilution with water, emulsion concentrates (EWs) and crop oil sprays. Pharmaceuticals, e.g. anaethetics of O/W emulsions, lipid emulsions, double and multiple emulsions, etc. Paints, e.g. emulsions of alkyd resins, latex emulsions, etc. Dry cleaning formulations - these may contain water droplets emulsified in the dry cleaning oil that is necessary to remove soils and clays. Bitumen emulsions - emulsions prepared stable in the containers but when applied to the road chippings they must coalesce to form a uniform film of bitumen. Emulsions in the oil industry - many crude oils contain water droplets (e.g. North Sea oil) and these must be removed by coalescence fol-... 

PVAc is widely used in paper industry for the coating of papers and paperboards. Textile industry also uses PVAc as a binder in nonwoven materials and for the coating of natural and synthetic fibers. It is also used as additive in bitumens and mortars. High-VA-content copolymers are used for the same application. 

In March 2008 WRAP published the results of a review carried out to investigate the worldwide use of crumb-modified asphalt over the previous 25 years [2]. The work was conducted for WRAP by Scott Wilson and involved a desk study of published information from 1983 to 2008 on the use of rubberised asphalt (RA) worldwide and the results of communications with relevant industrial experts on the practical issues associated with the use of RA in their countries. There are two main processes for using rubber in asphalt (Le., the dry and wet processes) and this review concentrated on the use of the wet process, as this is the method to produce rubberised bitumen. Rubberised bitumen can be used in four different areas of application ... 

The applications mentioned are the more well known but newer ones in the automotive sector, building, electrical insulation, domestic appliances, agriculture, etc. are also mentioned. Information is also given on uses of ethylene-propylene elastomers where the products do not undergo the traditional processing of the rubber industry, but are used as additives to various materials such as plastics, lubricating oils, bitumen and waxes, in order to modify or improve certain properties. 

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