Study on the influence of spent-catalysts microphysical properties on FCC/asphalt interface interaction

Abstract

Abstract This research aims to quantify the interfacial interaction mechanism between the fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) spent catalyst and asphalt. The two types of spent-catalysts, three types of mineral powders, and their bituminous slurries are selected to complete the tests of microscopic morphological, specific surface area, surface energy, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, specific adhesion work, and interaction parameter C-value for FCC-spent-catalysts in laboratory. The results indicate that: (1), the physical properties of FCC-spent-catalyst compared with mineral powder when the particle size ranging from −2.2 to 5.4 μm between FCC-spent-catalysts and mineral powder, the specific surface area of FCC-spent-catalyst was 100 to 900 fold that of mineral powder, while the alkali value of FCC-spent-catalysts was 2 to 8 fold that of mineral powder; no significant difference was observed in surface energy; (2), the mixture system did not produce new functional groups after FCC-spent-catalyst addition to the asphalt mixture system; (3), the adhesion work of FCC-spent-catalyst was close to that of mineral powder, the specific adhesion work was 74 to 763 fold that of mineral powder when they have the similar particle size; (4), the interaction parameter C-value between FCC-spent-catalyst and asphalt was higher than the interaction between mineral powder and asphalt at identical test temperatures. This study demonstrates that the FCC-spent-catalyst have the potential to improve the in-service performance of the pavement under high-temperature and moisture damage in terms of a larger specific surface area and stronger.