Go Green With Chemoran

We are currently in a state of Climate emergency and governments world-wide are now promoting practices and processes that contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions. In June 2020, Colas launched its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) guidance document entitled “Colas Group CSR Guidelines 2020 – 2025”. It states that “the stakes have never been higher” and describes actions to be taken to “decarbonate” our activities along with other climate friendly targets.

The pavement and maintenance materials made using Chemoran’s products can help Colas subsidiaries and national road authorities to achieve their carbon reduction targets.

Carbon and biodiversity strategy

Optimize local transport; implement alternative material transport solution, increase energy efficiency in asphalt plants

To combat climate change, Colas is rolling out a "decarbonisation" strategy for all it's activities. Roadworks and maintenance materials such as cold-mix asphalt, cold-mix micro-surfacing, surface dressing and cold in situ recycling are all techniques that enable pavement stakeholder to reduce their carbon footprint. All of these technologies are based on bitumen emulsion technology. Colas is the largest user of bitumen emulsions in the world and, as such, is in a perfect position to promote the use of these techniques and take advantage of their inherent environmental advantages.

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Warm-mix asphalt being laid by Barrett Paving for New York DoT.

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In situ pavement recycling with bitumen emulsion by Colas Ireland.

In addition to being a cold technique, in situ cold recycling is one of the most environmentally sustainable and low carbon maintenance techniques, as use is also being made of the aggregate material already on site. Consequently, there is less use of this valuable resource and there is less no transporting of aggregates from a quarry / asphalt plant to the jobsite. In addition, the bituminous binder already present in the pavement can also be recycled.

Transport of pavement materials can also be minimized when using cold-mix asphalts, such as grave-émulsion. The mixing plant can be brought to the local quarry to produce the cold-mix asphalt there, instead of hauling the hot-mix from a hot-mix plant that might be a much greater distance from the jobsite.

Using Chemoran’s additive, CWM™, to make warm-mix asphalt instead of the conventional hot-mix asphalt, enables asphalt manufacturers to reduce the energy used in the mixing plant by up to 20%. Consequently, their carbon emissions will be equally reduced. It should be noted that, here we are talking about warm-mix asphalt that has a mixing temperature of the order 30 °C lower than that of the conventional hot-mix – unlike for most foam-mix asphalts where the mixing temperatures are not so significantly reduced.

It should also be noted that the use of Chemoran’s adhesion promoters, TPH™ and XTX™, in hot-mix asphalts improves the resistance to water damage/stripping of the asphalt mix and, thereby, extends the lifetime of the pavement layer. (Adhesion promoter are systematically used in some countries, as a form of insurance). Longer lifetimes mean less maintenance, less roadworks, less disruption to motorists, less money spent by the road authorities and less emissions.

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Grave-émulsion cold-mix asphalt being laid by Colas France.

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Cold-mix micro-surfacing being laid by Colas Australia.

Some examples of the type of reductions in carbon emissions that are possible; by using the above techniques, examples are given below (as calculated by a life cycle analysis tool called SEVE, as developed by the French road contractors association). Further examples are given at the Pavement Preservation and Recycling Alliance (PPRA) website at www.roadresource.org . It contains a tool for calculating the carbon savings for a given road scheme you are considering.

Further information on the environmental advantages of using bitumen emulsion is contained on the International Bitumen Emulsion Federation (IBEF) website at www.ibef.net .

Circular economy

Promote recycling techniques internally and with customers

As described above, pavement recycling with emulsions is one of the most efficient ways to reduce your carbon footprint. The three most commonly used types of cold recycling are CIR (Cold in place recycling), FDR (Full depth recycling) and CCPR (Cold central plant recycling). CIR and FDR occur at the pavement and depend on the depth of pavement to be recycled. CCPR, on the other hand, is carried out at a dedicated cold-mixing plant which is normally located in a local yard, where road planings are processed and mixed using a bitumen emulsion to make a new cold-mix asphalt that is then transported to the jobsite and paved.

Health and safety

Anchor safety culture in practice

Cold techniques are indeed safer than hot techniques, and require less mandatory licence for the haulage of hot liquids.

Even the use of warm-mix asphalt in stead of hot-mix asphalt will significantly reduce the amount of fumes and smoke both at the mixing plant and at the jobsite.

Some examples

The following reductions can be achieved when pavement preservation techniques that use Chemoran products are used as an alternative to techniques involving the use of conventional hot binders:

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#chemoran #climateemergency #colasthescienceofroads #keepupthegoodwork