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Researcher Creates Cooking-Oil-Based 'Bioasphalt'

posted by janrinok on Friday February 28 2014, @11:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the Frying-Tonight dept.

AnonTechie writes:

"Haifang Wen is professor in civil and environmental engineering at Washington State University where he uses his education to research new ways of making asphalt better and cheaper.

'The asphalt used in roads has traditionally been made from aggregate small particles of rock and products made from crude oil. When crude oil is refined, it produces a variety of products including light fuels like gasoline, heavier plastics and also dense asphalt. But the price of asphalt made from crude oil is pretty high, about $700 to $800 per ton', Wen said. 'That really adds up. One lane of a highway, paved for one mile, costs about $1 million. Now you know where your taxes go !'

One alternative to traditional asphalt that Wen and the people in his lab are looking into is bioasphalt. Instead of using petroleum, waste cooking oil is processed into asphalt.

http://news.wsu.edu/2014/02/18/rock-doc-designing- better-asphalt-at-wsu/"

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NewMexicoArt on Friday February 28 2014, @11:59PM

    by NewMexicoArt (1369) on Friday February 28 2014, @11:59PM (#8959)

    in some areas used cooking oil is not free anymore, due to the demand for use as diesel fuel etc. i would be cautious about any business venture based solely on free cooking oil

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by SMI on Saturday March 01 2014, @03:00AM

    by SMI (333) on Saturday March 01 2014, @03:00AM (#9000)

    I'd be cautious about any business venture based solely on free anything, too, but I do think that someone ought to point out that before there was demand, restaurants had to pay to have that used cooking oil hauled away.