What is the difference between asphalt and bitumen? | Suppliers of bitumen equipment

Difference between Asphalt and Bitumen

Asphalt and Bitumen do have some production differences in everyday use, even though they both mean asphalt. So what are their differences? Let's take a look at them together

1. Geographic and cultural differences:

The term Asphalt is primarily used in North America (e.g., the United States and Canada), while the term Bitumen is more common in southern hemisphere countries such as Australia and New Zealand. This difference reflects the culture and idioms of different regions.

2. Specific meaning:

Asphalt: In the United States and Canada, Asphalt is commonly used to refer to Asphalt Concrete, which is usually expressed as the material formed by mixing aggregates (e.g., gravel, sand, etc.) with asphalt, which is used to pave roads. In addition, Asphalt also refers specifically to asphalt laid on roads.

Bitumen: In Australia and elsewhere, the word bitumen is often used to express the raw material of asphalt, i.e., the bituminous part extracted from petroleum. In informal contexts, Bitumen is also used to refer to tarmac or asphalt.

3. Usage and Understanding:

The specific meanings of the two terms can vary in different contexts. For example, Asphalt puts more emphasis on the mixture of asphalt and aggregate, while Bitumen focuses more on asphalt in its raw form.

The main differences between Asphalt and Bitumen are their geographic distribution, cultural usage, and specific meanings. But at their core, they both refer to asphalt or asphalt-related materials.

I'm going to introduce you to the basics of bitumen, and I hope it will be helpful to you.

Bitumen is a dark brown complex mixture of hydrocarbons of different molecular weights and their non-metallicderivatives, a type of highly viscousorganic liquid, liquid, with a black surface, soluble in carbon disulfide. Bitumen is a kind of waterproof and moistureproof and anti-corrosion organic cementitious material. Bitumen can be mainly divided into three kinds of coal coke bitumen, petroleum asphalt and natural asphalt: among them, coal coke bitumen is a by-product of coke refining. Petroleum bitumen is the residue after the distillation ofcrude oil. Natural bitumen, on the other hand, is stored in the ground, some of which form mineral layers or accumulate on the surface of the earth's crust. Bitumen is mainly used in industries such as paints, plastics, and rubber, as well as for paving roads.
 
In civil engineering, bitumen is widely used waterproofing and anticorrosion materials, mainly used in roofing, ground, underground structure of waterproofing, wood, steel corrosion. Bitumen is also widely used in road engineering pavement structure binder material, it can be built with different composition of mineral materials in proportion to the proportion of different structures of asphalt driveway, highway applications are more widely. Since the reform and opening up of China's economy has been maintaining a high rate of growth, highway transportation construction by leaps and bounds, China's road bitumen production enterprises have also been rapid development. Especially heavy-duty asphalt and modified bitumen to achieve from scratch, from small to large, from small to large, from small to large, from small to large qualitative leap for China's road construction has made great contributions.
 
Among them, the use of bitumen to maintain pavement is usually divided into three types: preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, and acute maintenance. These three types of maintenance can be selected according to the use of pavement, each type of maintenance and need to choose different maintenance methods and maintenance equipment. The difference between the three maintenance measures is mainly reflected in the pavement condition and the length of time of traffic. Of course, there is no obvious boundary between the three.
Preventive maintenance is to maintain the pavement before the appearance of damage; corrective maintenance refers to the repair of local damage to the pavement or the treatment of some specific diseases; acute maintenance is a measure in emergency situations, for example, the pavement bursts and serious potholes need to be repaired immediately before the traffic.
 
Nowadays China's asphalt industry has entered a large-scale, centralized stage of rapid development, people are more and more familiar with the understanding of asphalt, because the amount of asphalt is not only large, but also very extensive, whether it is a small street in the countryside, the city's avenues, or high speeds can not be separated from the use of asphalt, so asphalt recycling has become a very hot topic in the mouths of the people, especially in the mouths of the men, and some of the people put the Recycling bitumen as a business, and even some people get rich because of asphalt recycling!
 
However, the scale of development of asphalt and our domestic market demand compared to China's asphalt market is still in a state of oversupply, especially those high-end modified asphalt market in China is also to be discovered by talented people, China's ordinary road asphalt manufacturers, but fewer professional asphalt manufacturers, we should gradually increase the number of professional asphalt manufacturers to make up for the growing market demand for professional asphalt. Bitumen market demand.
 
Bitumen can be divided into three main types of coal coke asphalt, petroleum asphalt and natural asphalt: coal coke asphalt is a by-product of coke refining, that is, tar distillation residue in the distillation kettle after the black material. It and refined tar are only physical properties, there is no obvious boundaries, the general method of division is to specify the softening point of 26.7 ℃ (cubic block method) below the tar, 26.7 ℃ or more for the bitumen. Coal tar bitumen contains mainly anthracene, phenanthrene and pyrene which are difficult to volatilize. These substances are toxic, due to the different content of these components, the nature of coal tar pitch is therefore different. Changes in temperature have a great impact on coal tar pitch, easy to brittle in winter, easy to soften in summer. There is a special odor when heated; heated to 260 ℃ in 5 hours later, the anthracene, phenanthrene, pyrene and other components will be volatile.
 
Petroleum bitumen is the residue of crude oil after distillation. According to the different degree of refining, at room temperature into a liquid, semi-solid or solid. Petroleum bitumen color black and shiny, has a high sense of temperature. Because it was once in the production process distillation to 400 ℃ or more, and thus contains little volatile components, but there may still be a high molecular hydrocarbons without volatile out, these substances are more or less harmful to human health at room temperature is black or black-brown viscous liquid, semi-solid or solid, mainly containing hydrocarbons soluble in chloroform and non-hydrocarbon derivatives, and its nature and composition with the source of crude oil and production of different methods and changes. The nature and composition with the source of crude oil and production methods vary. The main components of petroleum asphalt is oil, resin and bitumen. It also contains 2% ~ 3% of asphalt carbon and carbonaceous materials, but also contains wax. The oil and resin in the bitumen can moisten the asphaltene. The structure of the bitumen to the asphaltene as the core, adsorbed part of the resin and oil, constituting a colloid.
 
Natural bitumen is stored in the ground, some of which forms mineral formations or accumulates on the surface of the earth's crust. Most of this bitumen has been naturally evaporated and oxidized, and generally no longer contains any toxins.

If you are in need of bitumen and asphalt equipment, you can contact the professional asphalt plant manufacturer.