Polymer Modified Asphalt Emulsion

In road paving industry, asphalt emulsion is used for cold mix application such as chip seal, slurry seal, microsurfacing, cold recycled mixture and etc. Asphalt emulsion has several advantages compared to normal asphalt such as eco-friendly, easy to handle at ambient temperature and energy saving material because it does not need any heating process in its application. The history of asphalt emulsions and its application in road construction begin in the early part of 20 century. Due to the increasing number of traffic loads and volume, the used of normal asphalt emulsion is not enough to prevent the pavement from deterioration. Nowadays, polymer modified asphalt technology is used by researcher and manufacturer in asphalt emulsion to improve the performance of asphalt emulsion. Various types of polymers can be used to prepare polymer modified asphalt emulsion such as styrene butadiene styrene (SBS) block copolymer, ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyvinyl acetate (PVA), styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) latex, epoxy resin and natural rubber latex. Polymer can be added into asphalt emulsion in three ways: 1) pre-blending method, 2) simultaneous-blending method and 3) post-blending method. The blending method has important influence on polymer network distribution and will affect the performance of polymer modified asphalt emulsions. The absence of an agreed protocol has allowed various techniques to be used by testing laboratories in order to obtain asphalt emulsion residue. This paper presents an overview of the researches which have been conducted on polymer modified asphalt emulsions using various types of polymer and performance of its application.