FLUX OIL MANUFACTURING

Bitumen is a commonly used material for construction of flexible and semi-rigid pavements. Crude oil, from which bitumen is refined, is one of the natural resources. According to the sustainability policy, it is important to replace limited raw material with the one from renewable resources, e.g., vegetable-based material. Vegetable-based materials can be applied independently, fully or partially replacing traditional materials or supporting recycling of currently used materials.
Of the total environmental impacts of a road, a significant proportion derives from bitumen production, with crude oil extraction accounting for the major energy consumption and CO2 emissions. 85 percent of all bitumen produced world-wide is used in asphalt pavements, where the 10 percent is used for roofing, and the remaining 5 percent is used in other ways.
Aside from bitumen, aggregates are the other main component in roads. Around 30.000 tonnes of aggregates are needed for construction of 1km of a national scale road, and it could be considered that depending on the type of extractive site and rock hardness the CO2 emissions associated to aggregates production are in a range between 30 and 40 kg equivalent CO23. If it is considered that the European road network (EU27) is over five and a half million kilometers long according to Eurobitume, it is easy to guess that million tons of aggregates are needed each year to build and maintain European roads.
One of the potential measures to minimize the impact on the environment is the use of materials with greener profile. Plants are valuable source of materials that can be used to produce binders, liqueurs, or binder solvents. Among the plants that can be used for this are the trees and shrubs from which natural resins are derived or oilseeds to obtain oils.

ALL ABOUT BITUMEN

A primitive method of refining bitumen, probably of Babylonian origin, distillation, was well known to ‘Ali ibn al-‘Abbas al-Majusi in 950; he says that a hide was stretched over a kettle containing boiling bitumen so that liquid oil could be obtained by wringing the condensed liquid from the hide. But the Egyptian scientist al-Mas’udi, a contemporary of al-Majusi, also obtained an oily product from zift by a process reminiscent of modern cracking techniques. He used two superimposed jars separated by a screen or sieve. The upper jar, filled with bitumen, was heated with a fire, and the oily distillate allowed to drip through the screen into the bottom jar buried in damp sand.

So advanced a stage did petroleum refining reach under the scientists that in the early 12th century, kerosene or white naphtha could be purchased anywhere in the streets of Damascus. Indeed, a considerable distilling industry prospered in Damascus and, apparently, in Egypt too. In one account it was claimed that in one day a fire at the residency of the Fatimid ruler al-Mustansir destroyed 100 tons of refined naphtha.

By then, of course, the use of petroleum products was varied. In paving roads, for example Engineers, like the workers of Nebuchadnezzar, used a mixture of sand and bitumen that they called ghir in Iraq. In his book Aja’ib al-Buldan (“Wonders of the Lands”), the Arab cosmographer al-Qazwini tells us: There are two kinds of ghir, first the kind that oozes from the mountains, and then the other kind that escapes with water in certain pools, it boils together with the water of the spring. As long as it remains in the water it is soft. If we separate it from the water it cools and dries. It is extracted by means of mats and thrown on the shore. Then it is put in a kettle which is heated, the adhering sand is mixed and more sand is added and stirred to a good mix. Afterwards, when the mix is ready it is poured on the floor and becomes solid and hard. Ships and bathrooms are also painted with this mix.