Brief description of asphalt

Asphalt is the oldest petroleum product. People began to use asphalt before they knew oil. As early as 5000 years ago, people discovered natural asphalt, and used its good bonding ability, waterproof properties, anti-corrosion properties and other characteristics as a binder for paving stone roads in different forms, as a waterproof treatment for buildings such as palaces, and as a ship caulking material.

Asphalt mainly refers to the black to dark brown solid or semi-solid viscous substances composed of high molecular hydrocarbons and non hydrocarbons, which all exist in nature in solid or semi-solid state or are produced by petroleum refining process.

　　 Production process and application of petroleum asphalt

Petroleum asphalt is crude oil A kind of asphalt product produced during processing, which mainly contains hydrocarbon and non hydrocarbon derivatives soluble in trichloroethylene. Its properties and composition vary with the source of crude oil and production methods. According to colloid theory, petroleum asphalt is mainly composed of oil, resin and asphaltene.

Petroleum asphalt can be classified into road asphalt, building asphalt, hydraulic asphalt and other special asphalt according to their uses. Its main uses are highway construction at all levels, roof waterproofing, urban infrastructure construction, airports, water retaining dams, energy storage power stations and other applications. In the application of the above aspects, the consumption of petroleum asphalt in highway construction at all levels occupies a pivotal position. Most of the high-grade highways in the world today use asphalt pavement. More than 90% of the high-grade highways in the United States are asphalt pavement, while about 95% of the highways in China use semi-rigid base asphalt pavement, so petroleum asphalt plays a very important role in road construction.