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lnorganic Polymers

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10I.4

BITUMENS

The petroleum industry, including the commercial bitumen industry, was born in the United States in August 27,1859 when Colonel Drake drilled a hole about 70ft deep nearTitusville, Pennsylvania to "bring in" the first producing well. By 1908, Henry Ford began to mass-produce his Model "T" Ford creating an additional need for this petroleum in the form of gasoline. The distillation residue became more plentiful and a need for large-scale usage of bitumens increased. Even so, the bitumens are a very old material. They were used in the waterproofing of the cradle that baby Moses was floated in. It was used by the ancient Egyptians in their mummification process. Bitumens were used in sand stabilization and for lighting the naval base by the Second Muslim Caliph, Omar ben Khattab, at Basra on Shattul-Arab on the West Coast of what is now Saudi Arabia around 640 n o. Bitumens occur naturally or are formed as the residue in the distillation of coal tar, petroleum, etc. Industrially, the two most important bitumens are asphalt and coal tar. Asphalt is a brown to black tar-like variety ofbitumen that again occurs naturally or is the residue ofdistillation. Coal tar is the black, thick liquid obtained as the residue from the distillation of bituminous coal. Bitumens are examples of materials that have only an approximate structure. Bitumens are carbon-intense small polymers with molecular weights from about 200-l000Da for coal tar, with a calculated average number of carbons of about 15-i0 in a chain. Asphalt has a molecular weight averaging about 400-5000Da, with a calculated average number of carbons in a chain of about 30-400. Thus, they are generally oligomers to short polymers. Asphalt has a C/H ratio of about 0.7, while coal tar has a C/H ratio of about 1.5 approaching that of a typical hydrocarbon where the C/H

ratio is about 2. As with most nonpolar hydrocarbon-intense polymers, bitumens exhibit good resistance to attack by inorganic salts and weak acids. They are dark, generally brown to black, with their color difficult to mask with pigments. They are thermoplastic materials with a narrow service temperature range unless modified with fibrous fillers and/or synthetic resins. They are abundant materials that are relatively inexpensive, thus they are used in many bulk applications. At temperatures above the Q, bitumens generally show Newtonian behavior. Below the {, bitumens have rheological properties similar to elastomers. Bitumens are consumed at an annual rate in excess of 75 billion pounds in the United States.
Bitumens are generally used in bulk such as in pavements (about 75Vo), and in coatings for roofs (157o), driveways, adhesive applications, construction, metal protection, etc. where the bitumen acts as a weather barrier. Bituminous coatings are generally applied either hot or cold. Hot-applied coatings are generally either filled or nonfilled. Cold-applied coatings are generally either nonwater or water containrng. In the hot-applied coatings, the solid is obtained through a combination of cooling and liquid evaporation whereas in the cold-applied coatings, the solid material is arrived at through liquid evaporation. One often-used coating employs aluminum pigments compounded along with solvents. These coatings are heat reflective and decrease the energy needs of building using them. The aluminummetallic appearance is generally more desirable than black, and the reflective nature of the aluminum reflects tigtrt tfrat may damage the bitumen coating allowing the coating a longer useful life. Today, many of the bitumen coatings contain epoxy resins, various rubbers, and urethane polymers.

10.15 CARBON

BLACK

Carbon blaik is another of the carbon intensive materials. It is formed from the burning of gaseous or liquid hydrocarbons under conditions where the amount of air is limited. Such burning favors "soot" formation, i.e., carbon black forrnation. It was produced by the Chinese over 1000 years ago. Today, it is produced in excess of 1.5 million ton annually in the United States. The most widely used carbon black is furnace carbon black. The particle size of this raw material is relatively large, about 0.08 mm. It is soft with a Mohs scale hardness of less than one.