Nynas breaking new ground for lower carbon roads

Extending the useful life of the pavement is one of the best things one can do in order to improve the sustainability credentials of a road construction; over the lifetime of the road less new raw material will be used, fewer maintenance interventions will be needed, leading to fewer diversions and traffic jams. Altogether this will lead to a lower carbon footprint.

A well-known technique for achieving a longer useful pavement life is to use a polymer modified bitumen (PMB). However, along with the many benefits of polymer modification comes a drawback - the polymer adds significantly to the carbon footprint of the binder. This is why Nynas has developed a PMB containing biogenic material to compensate for this and reduce the overall carbon footprint.

“Polymer modification extends the useful life of a road and with this product development we can offer all the benefits of PMBs, and more, without increasing the carbon footprint.”, says Carl Robertus, Technical and Research Director Nynas Bitumen.

Not only does the biogenic material compensate for the larger footprint due to the polymer. Through a number of academic studies involving Nynas, it has also been demonstrated to bring a number of additional benefits:

• enhanced resistance to ageing
• better adhesion
• improved performance when reused, and more.

With the new range of binders, available from 2022 in selected markets, Nynas offers the road construction sector a tool to reduce the climate impact of its activity.

Download the full White Paper

Errata:
In a previously published version of this white paper, there was a mistake in the legend of Figure 2 in that “Reference bitumen, aged loose mix” and “Reference bitumen, loose mix” had been swapped. This has now been corrected in the version available for download above.