Haifang Wen in his laboratory holding a small can of cooking oil-based bioasphalt and a sample of the final hot mix asphalt (HMA).
The heat, the petroleum fumes… No one likes to be stuck behind an asphalt paving truck on a sweltering summer day. But, for the last 100 years, asphalt has played an integral role in building a strong American economy, keeping us all connected via our sprawling, easily accessible web of national roadways. So, imagine the relief and celebration if hot asphalt instead served up the aroma of French fries or deep-fried shrimp, won tons, or corndogs.
Asphalt is going green. In the near future, Washington motorists may be the first in the nation to drive on streets and highways paved with waste cooking oil-based asphalt. A scientist at Washington State University has developed the technology to substitute restaurant cooking oil for crude oil in the production of a sustainable “bioasphalt” that looks and handles just like its petroleum-based predecessor.
“We are shooting for summer 2014 to construct a trial road—probably at least a quarter mile long,” says Haifang Wen, assistant professor in the WSU Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Faced with rising petroleum prices, new environmental regulations, and changes to the crude oil refining process, asphalt has become a scarce and costly commodity.
Made from the residue left behind after production of gasoline, plastics, and other materials, lowly asphalt still commands $700-800 per ton, or half the price of gasoline at $1500 per ton, estimates Wen.
“Every year in the U.S., we use about 30 million tons of asphalt binder for roads,” he says. “More if you include roofing shingles. It’s easily a multi-billion dollar business.” But, it’s an old-school business that hasn’t done much sustainable thinking, Wen adds. “Only in the last decade has the green asphalt industry started coming together.
“It’s slowly picking up—more slowly than I wish.”
In Iowa, for example, scientists are making a corn-based bioasphalt from residue left after the production of ethanol. In North Carolina, swine manure is being incorporated as a paving substitute.
“Building roads is a big expenditure of taxpayer money,” says Wen. “In general, a one-mile road in a rural area costs at least a million dollars to build. With the waste cooking oil technology, we can reduce the cost of asphalt binder to under $200 per ton, making road building much cheaper.”
Asphalt binder, the sticky “glue” that holds crushed stone and sand together to form pavement, only accounts for about five percent of the final hot mix asphalt (HMA) that is steamrolled into glossy new lanes and boulevards.
Laboratory compression test for Haifang Wen’s cooking oil-based bioasphalt.
HMA has to be tough and reliable, able to withstand the ravages of heavy trucks as well as the extremes of Mother Nature. In Wen’s lab, each component of his bioasphalt is subjected to a series of rigorous stress tests such as intense heat, freezing temperatures, compression, and loading.
After four years of working with a chemist and “adjusting the recipe,” Wen is confident that his green, sustainable asphalt “is as good as the old-school petroleum asphalt.
“I am very excited to have patented a solid technology,” he says.
All of which has the undivided attention of both federal and state highway agencies. Wen has been collaborating with both and says the industry is “very interested and eagerly awaiting the roll out of (his) product.”
Nationwide, it’s an industry that supports more than 300,000 Americans in about 4,000 asphalt plants — one in every congressional district, according to the National Asphalt Pavement Association.
Wen’s waste cooking oil asphalt study also fits with President Obama’s 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) — where Congress is addressing the need for sustainability in the national infrastructure system, including surface transportation.
By Becky Phillips. Source: Washington State University
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