Scientists use tobacco inhalation to design sustainable and resistant asphalt

Since the advent of filtered cigarettes, smoking tobacco has become a major form of waste, with a projection showing that by 2025 it will produce around 9 trillion yen each year, and in addition, since the advent of low-nicotine electronic titles, the consumption and production of this waste has increased (particularly among young people aged 14 to 30).

Much of this waste is inappropriately disposed of in natural environments, beaches, forests, aquatic environments, and has very slow decomposition rates, causing serious environmental problems.

An innovative joint research project between the University of Granada (UGR) and the University of Bologna (Italy) proposes alternatives to recycle tobacco sucking (from all types of cigarettes, especially since they contain e-cigarettes) as an additive for road construction. This study demonstrates the potential to incorporate this waste and improve crack resistance in road pavement and higher speed reuse of recycled materials.

The Faculty of Civil Engineering, Chemistry, Environment and Materials Engineering at the University of Bologna designed and manufactured various types of pellets from cigarette butts. To do this, the ends of the cigarette butts (comprised with organic ash) were discarded, but the rest (almost all the weights made up of cellulose fibers and PLA plastic) were ground and mixed with Fischer Tropcipit-shaped wax (which acts as a binder), pushed in, and exposed to a cooling process to produce obesity.

The Institute of Architectural Engineering (LABIC.UGR) was then responsible for assessing the resistance of asphalt manufactured at 40% of the weight from recycled materials from degraded roads and e-cigarette butts. Professor labic.ugr, overseen by Professors MªCarmen Rubio Gámez and Fernando Moreno Navarro, is one of the university’s unique laboratories and is a world leader in the development of sustainable asphalt materials.

During asphalt production, when the pellets come into contact with hot bitumen, the wax melts and releases recycled cellulose and plastic fibers from the cigarette butts. These fibers act as reinforcements within the asphalt matrix, increasing resistance to cracks and also increasing binders, increasing their content, making the material more ductile and flexible.

Furthermore, the presence of wax allows for the bitumen to change the viscosity and lower the production temperature of the mixture, which reduces energy consumption and pollutant emissions.

The results of tests performed at Labic.ugr, currently published in Construction and Building Materials, show that using these pellets allows the production of asphalt with better recycled material content for cracking and heat shrinkage under traffic loads and heat shrinkage than traditional asphalt. Among the tests carried out, the UGR-fact method for structural and durability studies of materials patented by the University of Granada stands out.