Application of Waste Cooking Oil in Construction of Asphalt Pavement

Hossain, Kamal and Ahmed, Rayhan (2019) Application of Waste Cooking Oil in Construction of Asphalt Pavement. Research Report. Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

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Abstract

Using reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) material in pavement construction is an environmentally friendly practice which economizes the pavement construction costs by replacing the virgin binder in the mix design. However, the asphalt available in recycled pavements is already oxidized and stiffened due to various environmental processes, which may accelerate the pavement distresses especially thermal cracking. To counteract this, rejuvenators are being used by reactivating and restoring the original properties of the neat asphalt binder. Waste Cooking Oil (WCO), identified as a waste material and pollutant for river and landfills, contains lighter oil components that are similar to asphalt, and is being used as a rejuvenator in this study. This research is designed to conduct a number of basic and advanced testing to investigate the effectiveness of WCO as a rejuvenator. The experimental program includes the determination of free fatty acid (FFA) contents in the WCO using GC-MS and later reduced these FFA contents by transesterification process which was denoted by treated WCO. Thin-Film Oven Test (TFOT) aged PG 58-28 binder was used as a control, followed by mixing rejuvenators at 3%, 6% and 9% by the weight of the total binder. To better and holistically evaluate the rheological properties, Dynamic Viscosity test was being carried out. And, the advanced test includes Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) for obtaining function group information. The experimental study found that with the improvement of WCO quality after treatment, the rejuvenation behavior of aged asphalt also increases significantly. The treatment of WCO changes the chemical composition of rejuvenated asphalt that exhibits better adhesion performance and rutting resistance compared to untreated WCO. From FTIR analysis, distinct peaks of C=O bond were found, and the peak intensity increased with the quality of WCO decreased, which is a clear indication of being the binder becomes softer. Based on the experimental analysis above, the treated WCO seemed to be effective in improving the rutting resistance with a better adhesive performance of binder and can be suggested as a potential rejuvenator for the construction of asphalt pavement.

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