Investigation of recycled micronized polyethylene terephthalate (MPET) as a filler in asphalt pavement

• Main Author: Khairul Ikhwan Amrah
• Format: Academic Exercise
• Language: English; English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: TE250-278.8 Pavements and paved roads
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/35188/1/24%20PAGES.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/35188/2/FULLTEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/35188/

Sustainability development is one of the issues that had been a debate for many years as it consist of the responsibility of many people including engineers specifically at the highway construction industry. Nowadays, the plastic pollution such as Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is one of the most critical issues that need to be solved. Many alternative ways had been done including reducing the use of the plastic. They are several studies that had been done to recycle these plastics into production of highway materials including rubber, plastic bag and even plastic bottle. For this study, the plastic bottle was recycled as a source for Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) as filler in asphalt pavement. For this research, the PET was micronized mechanically by heating and then crush until it passed the 0.075 mm sieved. The Micronized PET were added into asphalt mixture as dry mix at 0%, 4%, 8% and 12% by weight of the filler. The asphalt mixture containing the micronized PET were evaluated for its engineering properties and adhesion properties. Based on the findings, the most optimum temperature on heating the PET would be 190°C where the particles managed to passed the 0.075 mm to be used as fillers in the asphalt mixture. Other than that, the results also show the utilization of MPET affects the engineering properties where the VTM decreases while the Gmb and VFB increases by increasing the MPET content. Furthermore, the strength properties also enhanced from the fact that the values of the resilience modulus and indirect tensile strength increases. Finally, the adhesion testing through water boiling shows that the modified asphalt containing 12% of MPET had less stripped bitumen rather than the other samples where it shows that the adhesion properties of the modified asphalt increase by increasing the amount of MPET usage. It can be concluded that the most optimum percentage of MPET content would be 12% by weight of fillers where we can utilize more of the waste material without compromising the performance of the asphalt mixture. Based on the findings, micronized PET had indicated the potential to be used as a filler in asphalt pavement.