Understanding Improvements to Low-Temperature Rheology of Stiff Binders Modified with Epoxidized Plant–Derived Oil Materials through Analytical Chemistry

Abstract

Abstract Through recent work at Iowa State University, great potential was seen from epoxidized plant oil materials, epoxidized benzyl soyate (EBS), and epoxidized methyl soyate (EMS) as fluxes/rejuvenators. This work found that improvement in low-temperature performance was greater than improvement in high-temperature performance for solvent de-asphalting (SDA) and residuum oil super critical extraction (ROSE) unit bottoms when using either EBS or EMS as compared to results from modified vacuum distillation tower bottoms with EBS and EMS. Based on these results, analytical chemistry was done using Fourier transformed infrared with attenuated total reflection and ion mobility mass spectrometry (IM-MS) equipment. Chemical analysis showed that there is indeed something in the SDA and ROSE binders that is interacting with both EBS and EMS, making them perform aggressively. The region of interest was identified from IM-MS to be between m/z 250 and m/z 400 for the SDA and ROSE binders, of which there were 35 common components where 29 of them had similar abundances in the SDA and ROSE binders.