Eco-Friendly, Low Cost Asphalt Alternative

1.

Specialized polymers are used to penetrate the existing road material and rapidly transform it into a hardened independent surface. After it has been applied and hardened (polymerized) it creates a hard surface which testing by Texas DOT has shown to be up to Six times stronger than conventional pavements and is a great asphalt alternative .

Clear Polymer Road Building to retain a natural, rustic driveway with the durability of asphalt

TOP SEAL WHITE is a asphalt alternative co-polymer patented by the University of Texas. When properly mixed in with most existing road materials Top Seal White binds the particulates to form a matrix that can be six times stronger than asphalt pavement. Top Seal White dries clear, resulting in a durable clear surface that maintains the natural color the  native stone.

Top Seal Black mimics the look of asphalt pavements.

Save money on road building and maintenance by using  TOP SEAL WHITE  to bind nearly any existing  road base material into a tight,water proof matrix. Eliminating the need for  expensive and disruptive excavation and replacement of road base materials, saving labor,machinery and hauling expenses.

Maintenance is easy and requires no experience and very little equipment, eliminating the expense of hiring a contractor for maintenance or repairs.

Black Polymer Road Building for a BLACKTOP LOOK at a fraction of the cost.

Material Coated with Top-Seal Black is a great asphalt alternative

 When properly mixed in with  road base, asphalt millings or recycle asphalt road  materials TOP SEAL BLACK binds the the particles  in the  existing road base materials into  matrix which can be six times stronger than asphalt, with a rich  black surface like asphalt.

Save money road building and maintenance using  TOP SEAL BLACK to bind  existing materials into a tight, water proof matrix,providing an  asphalt look, without the toxic materials and, expense of excavation additional base, hot-mix asphalt,and hauling costs.

Maintenance is easy and requires no experience and very  little equipment eliminating the continuing expense of seal coating traditional asphalt and contractor repairs.  THESE SAVINGS TYPICALLY PAY BACK THE COST THE INITIAL POLYMER ROAD OVER TIME.

Liquid polymer applied to existing road material to create a low cost, asphalt alternative

Extremely Tough and Long Lasting

Polymer liquid binder can be applied to almost any material to build a pavement surface at a fraction of the traditional pavement cost.  Liquid polymer products used on quality  materials creates a homogenous layer capable of withstanding erosion and any type of road traffic. 

Environmentally Friendly

It is extremely environmental friendly, non toxic in nature and does on cause any problems to human skin or body.

2. Road Oyl

Asphalt and concrete account for the vast majority of paving today. These materials are very different: asphalt is a mix of aggregate and leftover heavy hydrocarbons after more valuable, lighter fractions of crude oil have been extracted; concrete is a hardened, rock-like material usually made by mixing Portland cement with sand, coarser aggregate, and water. In the green design community, there is some interest in avoiding these conventional pavement products in favor of more natural, less energy-intensive materials using locally available aggregates and bio-based binders. Road Oyl Resin Pavement from Soil Stabilization Products of Merced, California is such an alternative.

Road Oyl, introduced in 1991, is an emulsion formulated from pine rosin and pitch in water. (An emulsion, for those whose high school chemistry is rusty, is a mixture in which globules of one liquid are suspended—but not dissolved—in a second liquid.) The pitch and rosin, which comprise roughly 50% of Road Oyl by weight, are coproduced with other timber products from southern pine in the southeastern United States.

Pine pitch is a black, viscous “tar” derived from the distillation of wood; before the development of coal-tar pitch, pine pitch was used to impregnate building papers and felt, and to saturate hemp fiber for oakum.

Pine rosin is the residue from distillation of turpentine oil from raw turpentine. The Road Oyl liquid is brownish in color with a mild odor. When rubbed between the fingers, it becomes extremely sticky as the water evaporates (and is hard to wash off!). It is shipped as a liquid by the 6,000-gallon (22,700 l) truckload or 55-gallon (210 l) drum.

For paving, Road Oyl is mixed with crushed stone—usually decomposed granite—that includes a range of particle sizes, from 1⁄2” (13 mm) or 3⁄4” (19 mm) down to fines or filler that pass through a #200 sieve (75 µm). In the company’s recommended 3⁄4” aggregate mix, one-quarter to one-half of the aggregate should pass through a #8 (2.4 mm) sieve. Ideally, the aggregate should not include organic matter or clay particles, though clayey mixes are sometimes used satisfactorily. The aggregate is typically wetted (2% to 4% water), then the Road Oyl emulsion is added at 6% to 9% by weight, depending on the application and the aggregate. The aggregate and emulsion mixture is then laid down using fairly conventional paving equipment and practices. In remote areas, such as along park trails, small-scale equipment and hand labor are often used.

After compacting or rolling and several days of cure time, Resin Pavement forms a hard, durable surface that contains neither petroleum derivatives nor cement. Unlike asphalt, which hardens by cooling, or concrete, which hardens through a chemical hydration process, Resin Pavement hardens through evaporation of the water carrier. And harden it does. The compressive strength of Resin Pavement typically exceeds that of conventional asphalt by more than threefold. It is also highly water-resistant and can withstand heavy wash and even flooding. In some applications, where greater compressive strength is required or the underlying roadbed is weak, the company’s EMC Squared  soil stabilization product is applied to the soil prior to laying down the Resin Pavement—soil stabilization products will be addressed in a future article. Because Resin Pavement is not softened by contact with hydrocarbon solvents (as asphalt is), this system is also commonly used around fuel storage facilities. The Road Oyl emulsion darkens the aggregate slightly but maintains the same basic look, which makes this system desirable in natural settings. Note that this is not a porous paving product; with the high content of fines (required for proper hardening), the cured pavement is highly impermeable.

EBN by the company showed Road Oyl to be quite clean compared with asphalt. As part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Estuary Program, testing was conducted by Analytical Chemical Testing Laboratory of Mobile, Alabama in the Spring of 1999 to verify the suitability of Road Oyl and EMC Squared for use around sensitive coastal estuaries. Total petroleum hydrocarbon (oil and grease) levels in runoff from newly applied Road Oyl pavement were measured at 2 parts per million (ppm) immediately after installation. To provide comparison, the laboratory reported on a study of stormwater pollution from new asphalt pavement in which hydrocarbon levels exceeded a company’s NPDES permit limit of 15 mg/l in six out of seven outfalls. This is not surprising, since the typical oil and grease content in asphalt drops from several hundred thousand ppm (greater than 20%) when new to about 30,000 ppm (3%) after aging for a period of years, according to Analytical Testing Laboratory.

Resin Pavement samples (as opposed to runoff) were also tested for 63 volatile organics (VOCs), 16 polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and 9 metals. None of these regulated substances were found (i.e., the levels of all were below the detection limits of the measurement apparatus). Newly applied asphalt, on the other hand, frequently contains measurable levels of many regulated VOCs and PAHs, according to the laboratory.

Road Oyl Resin Pavement was used by the Golden Gate National Parks Association at the Crissy Field Shoreline Park to produce an environmentally friendly trail surface that blends in well with the surroundings.

Photo: Soil Stabilization Products Co.

EBN mixed up a small sample batch of Road Oyl Resin Pavement using crushed brick and sand. We found the batch easy to mix and work with; it had a mild, nondescript smell. The three resultant samples were a deep brick color. Two samples had inadequate fines and did not hold together well, while added sand in the third resulted in a very strong block. This supports the manufacturer’s recommendation to produce and test sample batches to achieve the right mix. 

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

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. 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.

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

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

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.

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

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, andAvello Bioenergy Inc. Research is being conducted on the asphalt mixture, derived from plants and trees to replace petroleum-based mixes. 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.

Glassphalt

When the City of New York repaved a section of Fifth Avenue twenty years ago along the front of the Plaza Hotel with something called glassphalt, the pavement sparkled from tiny flecks of recycled glass in the aggregate mix. But it was neither the recycled nature of the glass, nor the resilience with which the material can stand up to the traffic and temperature swings of the Big Apple, that caught the attention of the hotel owner, Donald Trump. The famous real estate magnate just liked how the street glistened.

And he wanted more of this glassphalt, according to a 1991 Knight-Ridder wire story. True to form, Trump demanded that the other streets ringing the hotel get the same shimmering, glass-infused pavement.

Glassphalt has been used in other parts of the U.S. and across the world in the twenty years since. In fact, it first arose in the 1970s as a potential way to recycle the considerable volume of amber, blue, yellow, green and clear glass bottles in the waste stream. Annually, approximately seven million tons of glass are disposed of in landfills.

The problem with recycling glass is that mixed colors in the recycling stream mean that a specific color cannot be achieved – clear bottles cannot use amber material, for example. Which is what led, 40 years ago, to exploration of other uses of glass where color would not be an issue. Researchers found that by mixing it into pavement, where color was irrelevant, it could work functionally and possibly in a cost-effective way.

The economics of turning that tonnage of waste glass into pavement is enticing. Using it could reduce municipal costs associated with disposal. And on a pound-for-pound basis, crushed glass processing is sometimes less expensive than gravel and sand. And while extensive data on the durability of asphalt roads seems lacking, we know anecdotally that some of those roads from the 1970s on forward have held up pretty well. It just might be better pavement in certain applications.

So why is glassphalt not used routinely in road building? There are several problems:

Variable rock economics. At the most, the glass content would comprise between 10 and 20 percent of the pavement. So standard asphalt-making equipment and procedures would always be used, but this would reduce the costs from aggregate (crushed rock) that makes up the bulk of asphalt. Aggregate pricing varies from location to location, a function of raw sourcing and the distance required for transport. So in some areas, glass provides a cost-effective dilution, but in other areas not.

Municipal variables (recycling and asphalt manufacture). According to the Glassphalt Paving Handbook (Asphalt Institute Manual Series No. 4, 1989, University of Missouri-Rolla), “The best possibility for sustained production of glassphalt is in communities with municipal asphalt plants, because the community can make a direct correlation between the extra costs incurred in glassphalt installation and the savings from diverted solid waste tip fees.” The handbook goes on to say this is not the case in most of the U.S.

Not a simple substitution. The Glassphalt Paving Handbook also makes a point of how you cannot simply feed broken or crushed glass into the aggregate. After collecting the glass (by whichever method the municipality uses), it needs to be processed to a specific size (aggregate), after which batch modifiers must be altered along with the asphalt manufacturing operation.

Limited applications. While the presence of glass in the pavement presents no danger to humans or damage to vehicle tires, the skid resistance of glassphalt pavement is slightly less than that of standard asphalt. This then limits its use to lower-speed roadways – and prevents it from being used to build 65 mph highways.

In summary, the Clean Washington Center, a Seattle non-profit group that serves as a clearinghouse on recyclable materials of all kinds, says that “a great number of glassphalt demonstration projects have been performed in cities around the country. Most of these projects have not progressed past the pilot state because of economics.”

Separately, a 1999 study conducted (by the NYC Bureau of Management Audit) of glass recycling programs in eight major cities – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Philadelphia, Baltimore and San Francisco – found that only New York was sending its glass to glassphalt plants, and by that time it was not actually used by the city but sold to contractors working elsewhere. The program has apparently been discontinued since then because, according to Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, “it made the roads too slippery in the rain and too shiny.”

Donald Trump might take issue with Esposito on the latter problem. Since when is there something that sparkles too much?

Durability of glassphalt

But even if used only for slow-zone streets, or as pothole fill, might the economics of glassphalt change if considered over the life of the roads?

Donald Schaefer, once the mayor of Baltimore, later the governor of Maryland and after that the state comptroller, believes it was a high-quality, long-lasting material. In 2000, he told Baltimore City Paper writer Charles Cohen, “If I had to do it all over again, I’d do most of the streets in the city of Baltimore with glassphalt. It worked out well.” Only one Baltimore area contractor was using the material as of ten years ago, and only as a pavement undercoating.

An article (January 2005) in Resource Recycling bemoans the fact that recycled glass is subject to commodity market pricing fluctuations and thus most uses for the material make for unreliable customers. But that’s not always the case. The article cites Adams County, Wisconsin, where the price of cullet (crushed glass) is lower than hauled-in stone aggregate. The county claims their parking lots made with glassphalt “feature no potholes and require much less maintenance compared to projects constructed with gravel, saving even more money in the long term. Glass is also much easier to move around than gravel, according to contractors.”

So while glassphalt can be cost effective and perhaps superior to standard asphalt in some applications, it is hard to imagine it becoming a widespread substitution for crushed stone in making durable roads. The relative economics simply do not work.

And there’s no one that Donald Trump can fire to change that.

If not glass, how about polypropylene fabric?

Paving fabrics are another “unusual” road building technique that is used on 100 million square yards of road every year, according to Ray Myers, the executive director of the Asphalt Interlayer Association.

While there are some variations between the handful of manufacturers of paving fabric, the make up of waterproofing membranes (also known as paving fabrics or reinforcing fabrics) as originally developed by Phillips Petroleum Company in the 1970s are a non-woven polypropylene sheet, non-woven but needlepunched, that is heat-bonded on one side, along with a liquid asphalt tack coat. It is typically laid onto old pavement, especially where there are cracks, and then overlaid with new asphalt. An important feature of this material is its flexibility.

Pavement fabrics have one, very important job with regard to pavement preservation: to prevent moisture from entering. Studies show that use of paving fabrics extend the life of the pavement by 100% to 300%. But they cannot be placed on any existing pavement: this system can only work when placed on stable, even if cracked (“alligatored”), roads. It is not a pothole repair method.