Research on air pollutants and odour emissions from paving hot-mix asphalt with end-of-life tyre rubber

Abstract

This article discusses different types of pollution from the paving process and the influence of using hot mix asphalt without and including end-of-life tyre rubber. This new composition type is one of the possible solutions to reduce the amount of used transport tyres and a new way to use less valuable raw materials. The research carried out involved analyzers applied under conditions of a mobile laboratory and handheld particle counters. Odour samples were taken using a vacuum chamber in Tedlar containers, and the level of odours was analyzed adopting the olfactometric method. Exposure to gaseous carbon, nitrogen and sulphur oxides and particulate matter up to 10 µm, fractions from 0.3 µm to 10 µm, as well as the odours emitted that cover the soil surface with the hot-mix asphalt-rubber mixture was examined. The average decrease in pollution using the asphalt-rubber mixture is about 3.8–4 % of nitrogen oxides, 10 % of particulate matter of 1.5–10, and an increase is approximately 9 % for particulate matter of 0.8–1 µm and 15 % for sulphur dioxide. The level of odour of compacted asphalt is around 2.8 times lower than that in the case of level asphalt.

Keywords

• Hot-Mix Asphalt
• Rubber
• Air pollutant
• Particulate matter
• Odour