Preparation and Performance Assessment of Asphalt Emulsion Modified by the Fabricated SBS Latex

Abstract

Polymer modified asphalt emulsion (PMAE) has recently been proven to be one of the most effective methods to overcome the common distress of asphalt surface treatments, such as abrasion, rutting, ravelling, and poor durability. Because of the limited research studies about the preparation of PMAE using SBS latex, a new method to prepare SBS latex was developed and the feasibility of using it in preparing SBS latex modified asphalt emulsion (SBS-LMAE) was verified in this study. The optimized swelling parameters for linear SBS solutions were swelling 24 h at the temperature of 50°C with the toluene/SBS (T/S) mass ratios of 2.5 : 1 to 2.0 : 1 which was determined according to the analysis of viscosity and Tyndall effect. After that, the SBS latex with favorable dispersivity and stability was successfully fabricated with the T/S ratio of 2.0 : 1. At last, the well-specified SBS-LMAE was prepared using the fabricated latex and tested for its conventional performances and microstructure. The results show that the SBS-LMAE samples all meet the main requirements of PMAE for microsurfacing and possess appropriate uniformity and stability.