What is Bitumen?What Are Common Bitumen Production Methods?



What is Bitumen?
                Bitumen is a form of petroleum.
 This material has a sticky and viscous form that makes it a suitable choice for wide applications in the construction industry. 
Bitumen manufacturing process includes separating different components of petroleum. 
This separation is based on the boiling point of each component. 
This process is called bitumen distillation. 
The outcome is a material called bitumen that gets widely used for road paving, waterproofing, and roofing applications.

According to Infinity Galaxy, bitumen is mainly a composition of hydrocarbons.

 However, in the bitumen manufacturing process, other materials are used, such as small amounts of nitrogen, sulfur, and maltenes. 
It is also used in the asphalt refining process to provide the required durability for road construction. Bitumen production and the exact composition varies based on the crude oil source.
 
Bitumen has some key features that make it a popular choice for many industrial applications:

Durability: 
                Bitumen is considered one of the materials that is highly resistant to aging, temperatures, and weathering, which ensures a long service life.

Viscosity: 
            This material is perfectly suitable for adhesive and binding applications due to its high viscosity.

Waterproofing: 
            Bitumen waterproofing is a critical feature. This material has a hydrophobic nature, which makes it a suitable material for applications that need waterproofing.

Flexibility: 
            Bitumen is fairly flexible. This feature helps in preventing cracking or other kinds of damage, especially under heavy loads.

What Are Common Bitumen Production Methods?

 Straight Run
                Vacuum bottom or short residue has the properties of bitumen, such as proper viscosity and penetration. 
                In paving projects, it can be used as bitumen with no barrier. 
                The only issue is that most vacuum bottoms need enhanced processing to improve their properties.

Air Blowing
    
                A vital bitumen manufacturing process is air blowing. 
In this method, air with a desired constant temperature blows through the vacuum bottom, which produces asphaltene molecules. 
The production of these molecules results in the increase of bitumen’s viscosity. 
All these procedures lead to the production of heavier molecules and asphaltene. 
The air-blowing method decreases the penetration of the vacuum bottom and increases its softening point.

Semi-Blowing or Air Rectification
                        This process includes two different methods: batch blowing and continuous blowing.

Batch blowing: 
                A certain volume of feedstock gets heated to enter the reactor. 
The blowing can last for 3 to 24 hours, depending on the viscosity of the product and the degree of penetration. 
Oxidation reactions occur in this process, which increases the temperature. 
Thus, to keep the temperature constant, a cooling system is provided in the tower.

Continuous blowing:
             In this method, the critical point is that the vacuum bottom must have a constant flow rate before entering the reactor. 
This method offers several advantages, such as the increased production of bitumen per unit of time, ease of control and processing, and reduction of preheating costs of the vacuum bottom.

Fully Air Blowing

In the fully air-blowing method, the blown air through the feedstock is more than the semi-blown method.
 It is applied to a blend of a vacuum bottom that has a low viscosity, which leads to having oxidized bitumen.
 The temperature in the column and the air-to-feed ratio determine the amount of required blowing.

Solvent Deasphalting

Modifying the vacuum bottom in propane deasphalting units is a common method of bitumen manufacturing. 
This process is normally used on crude oil containing low amounts of heavy molecules. 
The vacuum bottom gets mixed with propane or butane, resulting in the extraction of deasphalting oil. Bitumen is produced at the end of this process. 
Propane deasphalting further reduces residue.
 The solvent deasphalting method produces a bituminous product with lower viscosity, enhanced temperature resistance compared to other bitumen, and higher ductility.

Blending

Referring to Raha Bitumen, an indirect bitumen manufacturing process is blending.
 This method is usually implemented to get bitumen with desirable properties. 
The blending method includes mixing several different types of bitumen together. 
The result is achieving bitumen with the preferred and desired specifications and properties.
 In a specific case, penetration bitumen 40/50 is mixed together with penetration bitumen 200/300, which ends up obtaining the intended bitumen, bitumen 80/100.

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