Full Recycling of Asphalt Concrete with Waste Cooking Oil as Rejuvenator and LDPE from Urban Waste as Binder Modifier

Carlos Rodrigues, Silvino Capitão, Luís Picado-Santos and Arminda Almeida
Additional contact information
Carlos Rodrigues: Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
Silvino Capitão: Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra, Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, Rua Pedro Nunes, 3030-199 Coimbra, Portugal
Luís Picado-Santos: CERIS—Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Arminda Almeida: Departamento de Engenharia Civil, Universidade de Coimbra, Rua Luís Reis Santos, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Some research projects have studied full recycling of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). Several additives have been used to rejuvenate the RAP’s aged bitumen. The authors previously studied full recycling of RAP rejuvenated with waste cooking oil (WCO). The asphalt concrete (AC) manufactured revealed good mechanical behaviour except for rutting resistance. Therefore, they decided to also include in the asphalt mixtures low density polyethylene (LDPE) from urban waste as a low-cost polymer to improve that weak point and verify if this technique was feasible and with potential as a pavement material. A laboratory plan was conceived to evaluate the mechanical performance of two rejuvenated ACs with WCO and LDPE. Stiffness, water sensitivity, resistance to rutting and fatigue cracking were evaluated. The results showed that, despite some empirical parameters usually indicated in current specifications not being met, the performance of the studied asphalt mixtures was adequate and, thus, there are good expectations about the future use of these solutions in real pavements, particularly for low and intermediate traffic levels. Based on a global analysis of the performance observed, the main conclusion was that full recycling of AC with WCO and LDPE is feasible, and the score obtained was higher than that of a conventional AC used for comparison.

Keywords: circular economy; low density polyethylene; reclaimed asphalt pavement; sustainability; waste cooking oil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8222/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/19/8222/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:19:p:8222-:d:424231

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().