Bioasphalt is an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

alternative made from non-petroleum based

renewable resource A renewable resource, also known as a flow resource, is a natural resource which will replenish to replace the portion depleted by usage and consumption, either through natural reproduction or other recurring processes in a finite amount of ti ...

s. These sources include sugar, molasses and

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and '' Porteresia'', both wild and domesticat ...

, corn and

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

starches, natural tree and gum resins, natural latex rubber and vegetable oils, lignin,

cellulose Cellulose is an organic compound with the formula , a polysaccharide consisting of a linear chain of several hundred to many thousands of β(1→4) linked D-glucose units. Cellulose is an important structural component of the primary cell w ...

, 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 island An urban heat island (UHI) is an urban or metropolitan area that is significantly warmer than its surrounding rural areas due to human activities. The temperature difference is usually larger at night than during the day, and is most apparen ...

Petroleum, environmental, and heat concerns

Because of concerns over

Peak oil Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; whil ...

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

and

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

, as well the

oil price increases since 2003 :''This article is a chronology of events affecting the oil market. For a discussion of the energy crisis of the same period, see 2000s energy crisis. For current fuel prices, see Gasoline usage and pricing.'' From the mid-1980s to September 20 ...

, non-

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

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 (2 to 10 °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.

History and implementation

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 Shell USA, Inc. (formerly Shell Oil Company, Inc.) is the United States-based wholly owned subsidiary of Shell plc, a UK-based transnational corporation " oil major" which is amongst the largest oil companies in the world. Approximately 18,0 ...

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 Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to giv ...

and

thermoplastic elastomer Thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), sometimes referred to as thermoplastic rubbers, are a class of copolymers or a physical mix of polymers (usually a plastic and a rubber) that consist of materials with both thermoplastic and elastomeric properties. ...

s to build and repair roads. The results reported are so far satisfying. On October 6, 2010, a bicycle path in

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

, was paved with

bio-oil Pyrolysis oil, sometimes also known as bio-crude or bio-oil, is a synthetic fuel under investigation as substitute for petroleum. It is obtained by heating dried biomass without oxygen in a reactor at a temperature of about with subsequent cool ...

based asphalt through a partnership between

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...

, the City of Des Moines, an
Avello 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. Since November 2014 the Dutch Wageningen University & Research centre is running a pilot in the Dutch province of

Zeeland , nl, Ik worstel en kom boven("I struggle and emerge") , anthem = "Zeeuws volkslied"("Zeelandic Anthem") , image_map = Zeeland in the Netherlands.svg , map_alt = , m ...

with bioasphalt in which the binder of bitumen was substituted by lignin. In 2015, French researchers published their results about the usage of microalgaes as a source of asphalt binding material.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Biomass Building materials Recycled building materials Pavements Chemical mixtures Amorphous solids

Petroleum, environmental, and heat concerns

History and implementation

See also

References