Bitumen and Its Uses

Since its inception, after it stopped using natural shelters such as caves, humanity has continuously built, and various construction technologies have developed as a result. Some building techniques for religious structures and dwellings used by ancient civilizations have been lost, and even modern technologies are unable to reproduce them. But that is a topic for another discussion.

Historical sources describing events that took place five thousand years ago already clearly indicate the fact that bitumen was used as a material with waterproofing properties. Technologies do not stand still, and today bitumen is used in various branches of industry.

If our ancestors used natural bitumen, which was a product of various natural processes affecting oil, in particular processes such as polymerization, today artificial, or as it is also called, technical bitumen is used. As a rule, bitumen is not found in pure form in nature. Various dolomites and limestones are usually used to extract bitumen. Technical bitumen, however, is a product obtained as a result of industrial-scale oil processing. Typically, tar (gudron) and a technology involving vacuum distillation are used to produce bitumen.

Natural bitumen is used quite rarely, primarily because of its expense. Technical bitumen, however, is encountered in everyday life constantly. For example, it is used for making building roofs—think of roofing felt (ruberoid). Most often, though, bitumen is used in the production of asphalt as one of the key components. And to mitigate the negative properties of bitumen at low and high temperatures, various additives are used.

A particularly important problem is the use of asphalt containing bitumen under low-temperature conditions. Based on the physical characteristics of the components that make up asphalt, an unpleasant feature arises: the likelihood of ice forming on the road surface.

In the past, coal could be bought at coal depots; it was widely used for heating premises, so there were many residues called ash. Ash was used to scatter on road surfaces and served as a means to combat black ice.

Nowadays, various de-icing agents are used to combat black ice, in particular calcium chloride.