Delivering Sustainable Asphalt Solutions with Improved Performance by Using Tyre Derived Fuel Oil and Recovered Carbon Black

Abstract

Waste tyres, including passenger car tyres, create significant environmental issues when they reach the end of their life and are disposed into landfills. Tyre recycling is one of the solutions to these environmental issues; however, only certain tyre types, such as truck tyres, are preferred by most recycling techniques. The thermal desorption process to extract fuel from tyres is an innovative technique to recycle all types of tyres, including passenger car tyres. The Recovered Carbon Black (rCB) is a by-product of the thermal desorption process. Due to its limited usage, it is immediately accumulated after production and research is therefore needed to investigate possible applications to make the recycling process even more sustainable and environmentally friendly. In this study, 1% of rCB was added to the AC14H C320 dense graded asphalt mix as a mineral filler replacement, and its properties (resilient modulus) and performance (fatigue resistance) were measured in the laboratory and compared with those of the virgin AC14H C320 dense graded asphalt mix. The cylindrical test specimens for the resilient modulus tests and the beam specimens for fatigue testing were prepared using the gyratory and slab compaction methods respectively. To simulate field ageing, some of the compacted specimens were conditioned at 85°C for 120 hours in accordance with AASHTO R30. The results showed that 1% of rCB increased the Resilient Modulus of the AC14H asphalt by 25 % - 31% in aged and unaged conditions respectively. Further, the rCB increased the fatigue life of AC14H asphalt significantly in aged and unaged conditions.