Anionic bitumen emulsion

GlboeCore develops and manufactures high quality colloid mills for production of water bitumen emulsions.

Preparation of bitumen emulsion is essentially the grinding of bitumen in water with a surfactant. Therefore, the emulsifier is one of the most important components of bitumen emulsions, which directly influences the quality and characteristics of the product. The emulsifier is a surfactant. By chemical nature, surfactants are divided into several types, depending on the charge of its particles. Since water bitumen emulsions are used intensively as binding and film-forming material in construction, two types of emulsifiers are used: anionic and cationic.

The difference is that the anionic bitumen emulsions are negatively charged, while the cationic emulsions are positively charged. The choice of emulsifier used in preparation of the emulsions determines the efficiency and reliability of the product.

For certain reasons, cationic systems have a significant advantage over anionic emulsions. Most of the fillers used in road construction, have a limited amount of positively charged particles, which can attract the negatively charged particles of the anionic emulsion. Therefore, it is more difficult to create a uniform structure and ensure high degree of adhesion with an anionic surfactant. When using anionic emulsion, bitumen should be modified by additives, while in cationic emulsion, the emulsifier itself serves as an adhesion additive.

Unlike cationic emulsions, which readily interact with alkaline and acidic minerals, anionic emulsions are less versatile and work well only with alkaline minerals.

The amount of emulsifier applied influences emulsion breakdown rate, i.e. the time until the bitumen precipitating from the emulsion, returns to its original state.