Study on the Conventional Performance and Microscopic Properties of PPA/SBS-Modified Bio-Mixed Asphalt

Materials (Basel). 2022 Jun 9;15(12):4101. doi: 10.3390/ma15124101.

Abstract

To promote the construction of environmentally friendly, sustainable pavements and solve the impact of the scarcity of asphalt resources on highway development, bio-mixed asphalt (BMA) modified by SBS and polyphosphoric acid (PPA) was prepared, and the influence of the ratio of bio-asphalt (BA) replacing petroleum asphalt on different PPA/SBS blending schemes was explored through conventional property tests. According to each PPA/SBS blending scheme, the optimal replacement ratio of bio-asphalt was optimized, and the microstructure and distribution morphology of different PPA/SBS-modified BMA were evaluated. Conventional property test results show that with the same PPA/SBS content, the replacement ratio of bio-asphalt has a significant impact on the conventional performance of composite-modified asphalt, but the appropriate replacement ratio of bio-asphalt can improve the storage stability and conventional performance of composite-modified asphalt; in micromorphological analysis, it was found that the number of bee-like structures on the surface of the modified BMA decreased significantly, which indicated that the molecular heterogeneity of various components in the asphalt was reduced. In addition, bio-asphalt changed the particle morphology and improved the dispersity of SBS in asphalt. The composite-modified BMA had a lower SBS content, but its conventional performance was still excellent-so it has significant application prospects in road engineering.

Keywords: PPA; SBS; bio-asphalt; conventional performance; micromorphological.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the science and technology plan project of Guangxi (Grant No. Guike AD21238001), The Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi Province (2021GXNSFAA220134) and the Innovation Project of Guangxi Graduate Education (YCSW2022074).