Identification and quantification of additives in bituminous binders based on FTIR spectroscopy and multivariate analysis methods

Bitumen is a crucial building material in road construction, which is exposed to continuously higher stresses due to higher traffic loads and changing climatic conditions. Therefore, various additives are increasingly being added to the bitumen complicating the characterisation of the bituminous binder, especially concerning the reuse of reclaimed asphalt. Therefore, this work aimed to demonstrate that the combination of Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy with attenuated total reflexion (ATR) technique and multivariate evaluation is a very well-suited method to reliable identify and quantify additives in bituminous binders. For this purpose, various unmodified and modified binders, directly and extracted from laboratory and reclaimed asphalts, were investigated with FTIR-ATR spectroscopy. The determined spectra, pre-processed by standard normal variate (SNV) transformation and the determination of the 1st derivation, were evaluated using factor analysis (FA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and partial least square regression (PLSR). With this multivariate evaluation, first, a significant model with a very high hit rate of over 90% was developed allowing for the identification of styrene-butadiene copolymers (SBC), ethylene-copolymer bitumen (ECB) and different waxes (e.g. amide and Fischer-Tropsch wax) even if the additives do not show any additional peaks or the samples are multi-modified. Second, a quantification of the content is possible for SBC, ECB, and amide wax with a mean error of RMSE ≤ 0.4 wt% and a coefficient of determination of R² > 90%. Based on these results, FTIR identification and quantification of additives in bituminous binders is a very promising method with a great potential.

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