Toward NetZero Carbon Pavements Using Amine-Impregnated Zeolite

The use of lime to mitigate the moisture damage in asphalt pavement significantly contributes to pavements’ carbon footprint, because lime production is a major CO2 producer. Existing alternatives to lime are liquid antistrips agents, however, they lose their effectiveness when exposed to heat during production, application, and service life of pavements. We proposed to use zeolite as a carrier for liquid anti-strip during mixing; zeolite has good thermal insulation capacity and can protect the liquid agents and release them gradually. We hypothesize that liquid antistrip molecules loaded into the zeolite’s pores are gradually released into the matrix of bitumen, with the protection in the zeolite’s pores allowing the molecules to maintain their effectiveness as antistripping agents until their release.