Bitumen paints, an old story with new approach, part-1, solvent based paints

Bitumen paints have lost their importance with the advent of modern polymers during the last century, but they are still used for large area applications such as tanks and pipelines. The main application of bitumen is as road paving binder and most of the research is devoted to improving properties by physical or chemical modification by polymers. Applying this approach to paints has shown that improvement in properties such as hardness and drying times without loss in adhesion and flexibility can be obtained by physical as well as physical followed by chemical modifications with EVA, reactive terpolymers and isocyanate prepolymers. Correct formulation with fortifying additives of asphaltene powder or hydrocarbon resin was another contributing factor.

► Bitumen has been modified by polymer addition to obtain better pavements. ► Chemical modification (crosslinking) by reactive intermediates is also possible. ► We employed modification by EVA, alkyd, glycidyl and isocyanate prepolymers. ► Modified bitumens yielded paints with vastly improved properties. ► Best properties were obtained with physical followed by chemical modification.