Dev.SN

Researcher Creates Cooking-Oil-Based 'Bioasphalt'

posted by janrinok on Friday February 28 2014, @11:30PM   
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/"

• and the winner is... and the winner is... (Score: 5, Interesting) by rytier on Saturday March 01 2014, @02:26AM

  by rytier (3480) on Saturday March 01 2014, @02:26AM (#8988)

  concrete road :) from what I read in Wikipedia, there is little reason not to use this technology more.
  source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_surface#Concrete [wikipedia.org]

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Moderation		+4
  Interesting=4, Total=4
  Extra 'Interesting' Modifier		0
  Total Score:		5

• Re:and the winner is... (Score: 2, Informative) by Noldir on Saturday March 01 2014, @08:33AM

  by Noldir (1216) on Saturday March 01 2014, @08:33AM (#9078)

  I dunno, I regularly cross the border into Belgium and the concrete roads they have there are very noisy and make the whole car vibrate.

  Parent