Investigation on the polymerization of petroleum vacuum residue using column chromatography

Abstract

The quality of Industrial Bitumen produced by the waste PVC catalyst is found to be superior in flexibility to that produced by the conventional catalyst ferric chloride. The quality of Bitumen produced by the sodium sulphide catalyst is found to be slightly inferior in flexibility to that produced by the ferric chloride catalyst. The softening point-penetration

relationship of industrial bitumen is better if the penetration is higher for a given softening point. The better the softening point- penetration relationship the better will be the flexibility of the product. As per IS 702-1961, there are different grades of industrial bitumen depending on the softening point-penetration relationships. They are mainly 85/25, 85/40, 90/15 and

105/25. (The first figure represents softening point and second one penetration). The optimum temperature of the process and air-flow rate are found to be 220°C and 5 L min^-1 kg^-1 sample. The optimum concentration in wt% of ferric chloride, waste PVC and sodium sulphide are found to be 0.75, 2.0 and 2.0 respectively. It is found that the duration of air-blowing in presence of catalyst required to produce the industrial bitumen of grade 105/25 is about 3 h. By using an activated silica gel column and proper eluants it is possible to sufficiently separate the various fractions in the industrial bitumen which resulted in their accurate determination.