Colorbiotics offers recycled-content asphalt boost

Colorbiotics, based in Ames, Iowa, has introduced Biomag Hot Mix, an additive containing a soybean-based polymer it says enables up to 50 percent use of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) in high-traffic and heavy-load applications. That higher percentage compares with 20 to 25 percent RAP use with competitive additives, according to the company.

Using Biomag means highways and major arteries can maintain performance requirements while being constructed with more RAP and less petroleum polymer modification, according to Colorbiotics. Tests have shown greater stress relaxation and elastic recovery in pavement with Biomag Hot Mix versus typical aging and stiffening that can occur over time with other additives, particularly in temperature extremes, adds the company.

“Biomag [Hot Mix] is the perfect complement to our Invigorate additive,” Colorbiotics Product Manager Austin Hohmann says. “We now have two additive options that make asphalt construction more environmentally friendly, from parking lots to major interstates in all climates.”

Colorbiotics says Biomag Hot Mix is an advanced soybean oil-derived additive that triggers chemical reactions inside RAP and stiffens binders to break down asphaltene aggregation. It also reverses the effects of oxidation in the final mix, the company says.

While other asphalt additives can offer a superficial change to the viscosity of the binder, Biomag Hot Mix improves the chemical properties of lower-quality binders, according to Colorbiotics. The company says as with its original Invigorate line, the new product “improves the recyclability of asphalt while still meeting performance-graded and performance testing specifications, with the added benefit of a soybean-based polymer for both binding and surface protection.”

“The same science that produces superior asphalt can help protect it,” Hohmann says. “It is powerful technology that should change the industry and create new standards over time. That is what we are working toward.”

Colorbiotics describes itself as an industry leader in the science behind landscape colorant, environmentally friendly additives and topicals for RAP, recreation surfaces and accompanying equipment.