Siberian researchers come up with new road-building solution

Innovators in Siberia?s Irkutsk have offered road builders new asphalt concrete with their know-how mineral additive as an alternative to traditional materials.

Innovators in Siberia?s Irkutsk State Technical University (ISTU) have offered road builders their brand new asphalt concrete with a know-how mineral additive based on ISTU-developed nanomodifiers and polymers, the university press service announced. The developers believe the new asphalt concrete may become a ?successful alternative? to costly polymer-bituminous bonding agents widespread today in road construction in Russia. By October, the city of Irkutsk may expect to see completed a pilot project aimed at using the technology on a section on one of its roads. According to Petr Nelyubin, the CEO of Nanotechcenter, an ISTU Techno-park spin-off, the project will be pushed as a private-public partnership with the city investing 60% and the company kicking in the rest. Viktor Alekseenko, an ISTU associate professor and one of the project developers, emphasized that ?the poor quality of asphalt stems from the low quality of bitumen which, as a rule, is not suitable for harsh climatic conditions in Siberia...