Abstract
Lignin accounts for approximately 30% of the weight of herbaceous biomass. Utilizing lignin in asphalt pavement industry could enhance the performance of pavement while balancing the construction cost. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing lignin as a bitumen performance improver. For this purpose, lignin derived from aspen wood chips (labeled as KL) and corn stalk residues (labeled as CL) were selected to prepare the lignin modified bituminous binder. The properties of the lignin modified binder were investigated through rheological, mechanical and chemical tests. The multiple stress creep recovery (MSCR) test results indicated that adding lignin decreased the Jnr of based binder by a range of 8% to 23% depending on the stress and lignin type. Lignin showed a positive effect on the low temperature performance of asphalt binder, because at −18 °C, KL and CL were able to reduce the stiffness of base binder from 441 MPa to 369 MPa and 378 MPa, respectively. However, lignin was found to deteriorate the fatigue life and workability of base binder up to 30% and 126%. With bituminous mixture, application of lignin modifiers improved the Marshall Stability and moisture resistance of base mixture up to 21% and 13%, respectively. Although, adding lignin modifiers decreased the molecular weight of asphalt binder according to the gel permeation chromatography (GPC) test results. The Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) test results did not report detectable changes in functional group of based binder.
Highlights
Lignin is a typical biopolymer of lignocellulosic biomass, which is abundantly generated in paper making and biofuel industry
Pen60/70, but the peak area is different. These results show that each type of lignin is evenly distributed in bitumen
It can be observed that the difference among residual Marshall stability (RS) values of kPa stress level had 0.1% (KLA) and CLA were not obvious, the results show that the effect ence among RS values of KLA and CLA were not obvious, the results show that the effect of lignin modifiers on the water damage resistance of mixture is basically same
Summary
Lignin is a typical biopolymer of lignocellulosic biomass, which is abundantly generated in paper making and biofuel industry. It accounts for approximately 30% of the weight of herbaceous biomass [1]. Lignin consists of plentiful aromatic rings attached with alkyl chains It is a highly branched and amorphous biomacromolecule with the average molecular weight in the range of 1000 to 20,000 g/mol, depending on the production process. It is known as the second most abundant biopolymer around the world, the traditional application of lignin is mostly limited to fuel, while only a small amount of lignin has been used as value-added bioproducts [3]. It is potential to be utilized as bitumen modifier on pavement engineering for better engineering performance and cost saving
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