Modified Bitumen Units
Modified bitumen equipment (UVB-2)
Today, oil bitumen is considered to be one of the “heavy tonnage” oil products. It is the quality of bitumen therefore, that determines the service life of road pavement. Very often, road or construction bitumen does not meet the modern requirements of the market. As a result, poor quality of bitumen causes premature wear of road surfaces as well as requiring considerable expenditures for labor intensive repair projects. Additionally, the increased amount of heavy loaded vehicles also aggravates the problem. It is therefore, road pavement that requires good quality of bitumen that can only be produced by adding special modifiers to the bitumen.
The problem of low-quality bitumen is solved by adding special modifiers that include petrochemical products and wastes such as rubber, surface-active substances, rubber crumb, and sulfur. But, the preference is given to the polymers. When dispersed in bitumen, polymers undergo irreversible physical changes with the introduction of substances that have a homogeneous morphology. It is desirable to create a submicron dispersion in order to obtain a high-quality binder. The initial stage is the macromixing when special component distribution is made uniform. The next stage is micromixing that consists of the mutual molecular diffusion with a corresponding increase of concentration gradient values. The introduced polymers are dissolved in the bitumen dispersion medium while interacting with asphaltene structures.
As we can see, the bitumen modification process is characterized by complex chemical transformations of the substances that require the application of high-quality equipment.
There is no doubt that this includes the use of GlobeCore units, designated as UVB-2 that produce modified bitumen including polymer-bitumen binders that have a wide range of applications. Some of the applications include: (1) road surface treatment; (2) preparation of asphalt-concrete layers; and (3) production of sealing mastics and roofing materials. The resulting materials fully meet the modern requirements and international engineering standards.
To meet an individual order and customer’s needs, the production capacity of the UVB-2 units may range from between 4 to 22 m³ per hour.
