We might have a problem with our roads: researchers have discovered that sunlight and rain might be able to turn certain compounds in asphalt into a potentially dangerous hydrocarbons, threating the surrounding environment and people using these routes.
In particular, it’s the binder (also called asphalt cement) that’s the problem. This heavy, black glue is used to stick stones, sand, and gravel together in paved roads. It’s made from leftover crude oil at the very end of its distillation process.
While the leaking of toxic, carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from asphalt around roads and pavements has previously been investigated, up until now it hasn’t been considered to be enough of a problem to impact human health – something the researchers behind the new study wanted to investigate further.
“The long-term stability of petroleum-derived materials in the environment has always been a curiosity of mine,” says chemist Ryan Rodgers, from MagLab at Florida State University (FSU).
“Knowing their compositional and structural complexity, it seemed highly unlikely that they would be environmentally benign. How do silky-smooth, black roads turn into grey, rough roads? And where the heck did all the asphalt go?”
The team created an experiment where a film of asphalt binder was stuck to a glass side, before being submerged in water and exposed to a solar simulator for a week. A sample was kept in the dark for a week to provide a comparison.
Using an ultra-high resolution technique called Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS), the researchers then analysed the water around both the irradiated sample and the control…
