Bitumen emulsion
Bitumen emulsion is a liquid product composed of emulsifier, water, and bitumen with low viscosity.
In other words, emulsified bitumen is usually bitumen droplets that have dissolved in water.
Refineries produce emulsion by mixing water with an emulsifying agent and other chemicals.
Then they pump it to a colloid mill along with bitumen.
The colloid mill machine breaks the bitumen up into small droplets.
It’s good to know that about 30-50 % of emulsion is water & emulsifies, to which we refer as soup. The rest is made of bitumen or asphalt.
Bitumen Emulsion Types
Same as the other petrochemical products, bitumen emulsion has different types with different characteristics.
To be more specific, this type of bitumen has three types as below.
Rapid setting (RS), Medium setting (MS), and Slow setting (SC).
All these above-mentioned types of emulsion differ only in the setting time of the product.
Keep in mind that this grading of emulsions highly depends on the application, surface, and climate.
For instance, slow setting bitumen emulsion is the one that takes more time to break. The rapid one takes less.
In other words, the water content evaporates faster in the rapid setting type.
Bitumen Emulsion Application
These types are perfect choices for hill road construction, where heating of bitumen is difficult.
Besides, Rapid setting (RS) are used for surface applications more.
Generally speaking, emulsion is applicable for tack coats, fog seals, slurry seals, bituminous
surface treatments (BST), since it efficiently reduce asphalt viscosity for lower temperature uses.
Is bitumen emulsion ignitable?
To answer this question, we say that emulsions are non-flammable.
Moreover, it may evolve toxic gases such as carbon, sulfur, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen sulfide, and hydrocarbons only when heated to dissolution.
What is ss1 bitumen emulsion?
In general, SS1 is suitable for the Prime Coat application.
It performs several important functions such as coating, loose
mineral particles on the surface of the base, hardening the surface of the base, and waterproofing the surface of the base.
What are Anionic & Cationic emulsions?
Generally speaking, bitumen emulsion can be Anionic, Cationic, and Non-Ionic.
An Anionic emulsion has a negative charge, a Cationic one has a
positive charge, and a Non-ionic one has no charge. Anionic bitumen emulsions have a high
resistance to acids.
On the other hand, Cationic emulsions will readily dissolve in acid solutions once the film is dry.
To sum up, bitumen emulsions are suitable, highly applicable materials that are environment friendly.
Furthermore, they have various types that each has specific characteristics.