Integrating rape-seed-oil for asphalt creation

It is expected that bitumen prices will continue to increase over the next few years, making alternative raw materials more competitive and with increasing market share for this product.

Renewable materials such as rapeseed oil are used to replace a small part of the bitumen for road maintenance binders. As a result, the innovative procedure has been used to create a repair asphalt mix that can be installed in cold conditions. Around one-third of this pioneering binder consists of biobased materials.

Rapeseed oil is one of the basic ingredients for the product, which is a typical agricultural product. The yield of 1m² of a rapeseed field equals to 1m² of road surface material.

Forecasts assume that about three percent of the bitumen could be replaced by rapeseed oil, which corresponds to about 15,000 tonnes of rapeseed oil in Austria and 100,000 tonnes in Germany, per year.

The product is also sold in small units (e.g. 10 kg buckets) in do-it-yourself-stores for home applications.

The integration of this product into the mixture of bitumen and aggregate binder fits the traditional process for asphalt manufacturing.