Road Surfaces that can de-ice themselves

As winter and the danger of icy roads, approaches, scientists are developing a new surface material that could de-ice itself.

Scientists in Turkey report in ACS’ journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, a new road material that could de-ice itself.

The team explains:

“Salt can be easily removed by rain or automobiles and requires frequent application on roads. Besides this economic consideration, anti-icing agents compromise the mechanical properties of asphalt and have a negative impact on living organisms and the environment when used in large amounts.”

Seda Kizilel and colleagues wanted to see if they could devise a way to ice-proof the road itself:

Here, we developed an innovative method to obtain polymer composite-modified bitumen and investigated further the anti-icing properties of the functional bitumen. We improved incorporation of this polymer composite into bitumen and demonstrated proper distribution of the composite within bitumen through morphological and rheological analysis. We characterized the anti-icing properties of modified bitumen surfaces and demonstrated significant increases in freezing delay of composite-modified bitumen compared to base bitumen in a temperature- and humidity-controlled chamber. In addition, we characterized the release of HCOOK salt from polymer composite-modified bitumen and observed salt release within the range of 1.07–10.8% (w/w) in 67 days, depending on the composite content. The results demonstrate the potential of this polymer composite-modified bitumen for anti-icing functionality and for industrially relevant applications.

source American Chemical Society