United States Department of Transportation
i
Improving the Compatibility of Waste [fact sheet]
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2021-08-01
[PDF-1.76 MB]
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Abstract:Waste plastic, though largely considered an environmental concern, has the potential to be a valuable resource. Some researchers have proposed mixing waste plastic with asphalt binder to make asphalt for the Nation’s roadways. Use of waste plastics to supplement traditional asphalt binders can reduce resource consumption and become an alternative to the disposal of waste plastic in landfills. However, challenges exist with using waste plastics in asphalt. In particular, knowledge of the compatibility of waste plastic—and the different types of polymers waste plastic is made of—with asphalt binders is limited. The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Exploratory Advanced Research (EAR) Program is supporting a 3-yr project, the first of its kind, to investigate and develop a computational model that can understand—on a molecular and atomic level—which waste polymers are compatible with which given asphalt binders to optimize the blend’s performance. Through this computational model, the researchers aim to provide a foundation for utilizing waste plastic in asphalt pavements on an industrial scale. A research team at Louisiana Tech University is conducting this study, awarded in September 2020, titled, “Improving the Compatibility of Waste Plastic and Asphalt Binder Via Theoretically Justified Identification of Compatible Blends.”
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