Combined Modification of Asphalt by Waste Polystyrene and Ethylene - Vinyl Acetate Packaging Materials

The "white pollution" caused by waste polymer in packaging materials not only contributes the serious environment problems, but also leads to huge waste of resources. In order to address this problem and promote the development of the packaging industry, we have to pay more attentions on the recycle of waste polymer packaging materials and research on new recycling techniques. In the present work, for the consideration of the environmental and economic issues, we used waste EPS and EVA, instead of ordinary polymer modifiers, to carry out the modification of paving asphalt by a combined technology. The combined modifications of waste polymer solved the problems of "white pollution" and reduce the modification costs of asphalt. The results showed an increase in the softening point of asphalt, decrease in penetration, and significant improvement on the low temperature ductility, with the modification of asphalt. The overall properties of the modified asphalt have been improved significantly. The FTIR spectrum and the microstructure analysis of the asphalt indicated that, the swell effect of the waste polymer evenly dispersed in the asphalt by high-speed shearing and the adsorption process of the aromatic compositions in EPS were the main reasons for the improvement of performance.