Puma Bitumen: Going above and beyond

Puma Bitumen’s low temperature binders, incorporating Cargill’s Anova® warm mix additive, are delivering significant economic, environmental and health and safety benefits for Australia’s asphalt industry.

Australia’s road construction industry is renowned for its commitment to innovation, and advancing the efficiency and sustainability of pavement construction, maintenance and rehabilitation of the nation’s road network assets.

It might therefore stand to reason that this industry has become ideally equipped to support Australia’s commitments to becoming a more environmentally friendly and sustainably conscious nation.

Puma Bitumen and Cargill have long been leaders in this charge towards change. And the momentum being made is much more than just symbolic.

Instead, it’s emblematic of Puma Bitumen’s sincere commitment to ensuring its operations influence a more positive environmental impact. The company is aiming to reduce its carbon emissions by at least 15 per cent, by the end of 2025.

Puma Bitumen’s warm mix additives are representative of the company’s commitment towards sustainability.

Continued development and research dedicated to growing its range of more sustainable bituminous binders are pivotal in delivering on this commitment. At the same time Puma is looking for opportunities to support a reduction in downstream emissions, and this is where warm mix additives fit in, by reducing the mixing and compaction temperatures required for asphalt mixing.

Puma Bitumen’s Global Technical Manager Dr Erik Denneman says the company now offers a variety of sustainable performance-enhancing additives.

“Low temperature options are now standard, available for all of our paving grade and polymer modified asphalt binders,” he says. “Anova warm mix additive is a bio-based additive, thus offering the additional benefit of also providing a small negative carbon contribution to the overall footprint.”

Through incorporating warm mix additives, users can gain significant advantages, particularly when it comes to reducing energy demand and emission output during production. Puma incorporates Cargill’s Anova warm mix additive, which has been proven to allow production temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius lower than conventional hot mix asphalt.

Significant savings

Puma LT warm mix asphalt provides a host of efficiencies for the user. The most notable of which is sustainability savings.

Denneman says the reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from asphalt mix production assists the user in limiting their impact on the environment.

“This is the main benefit which can be achieved,” he says.

“We estimate that an asphalt plant using Puma’s warm mix additive can achieve CO2 savings of approximately three kilograms per tonne of asphalt, if they’re using natural gas as fuel.”

Puma Bitumen’s warm mix asphalt doesn’t just offer environment benefits, they are also easy on the consumers’ bottom line, thanks to considerable cost savings from a reduction in energy consumption.

“There’s a significant energy saving in terms of gigajoules used in heating up the asphalt. If we’re looking at a 30 degree Celsius reduction in mixing temperature, we estimate that the cost savings for customers can be anywhere between one and three dollars per tonne,” Denneman says.

“Energy costs are really volatile at the moment, so the value of these savings should not be underestimated.”

Long-term cost benefits should also be highlighted, with warm mix asphalt also enhancing the durability of roads, therefore, reducing the frequency and volume of maintenance over time when compared to conventional hot mix asphalt.

Denneman adds that the additive can easily be implemented into existing production processes by customers.

“We can offer our customers a turnkey solution. They receive the binder with a preblended warm additive, after that they don’t need to make any changes at all, other than reducing their mixing temperature,” he says.

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These warm mix asphalts can also be used in conjunction with other Puma Bitumen products, as Denneman explains.

“They work very well hand-in-hand with our new bio-based bitumen extenders which feature a biogenic component,” he says.

In fact, Puma Bitumen’s A15E polymer modified binder formulation, while incorporating Puma biogenic bitumen extender, has a 150 kilogram CO2-eq (carbon dioxide equivalent) lower carbon footprint than conventional A15E.

In combination with a 30 degree Celsius reduction in asphalt production temperature thanks to Puma LT, the total CO2-eq savings would be 11 kilograms per tonne of asphalt from a natural gas-powered plant, and 12 kilograms for a diesel-powered plant.

The Anova difference

In collaboration with Cargill, Puma Bitumen has added the Anova warm mix additive products to its existing catalogue.

As Susan Listberger, Cargill Asphalt Solutions’ Commercial Manager explains, both companies were aligned in their vision of creating a sustainable, high-performance and safe alternative for paving grade bitumen or polymer modified bitumen.

“Development on Anova asphalt additives started about 10 years ago, but Cargill has been specifically engineering and formulating products for industrial applications for more than 70 years. Our Anova asphalt additives have been an evolution of that focus,” Listberger says.

“We really believe that a product has to perform as good or better than the alternatives, so performance is at the forefront of product development. But we also always keep in mind the safety of our products as well. Anova warm mix additive is bio-based and non-hazardous. Being non-hazardous is a big benefit to many of our customers – it means the product is safer and easier for workers to handle.”

The Anova warm mix additive is also manufactured sustainably.

“The feedstocks used to make the product come from rapidly renewable resources, so each year – and in some cases more frequently – the feedstocks are regenerated and can be harvested again. Products made with renewable feedstocks have significant environmental advantages compared with fossil-fuel-based products,” Listberger says.

“That’s what makes our Anova asphalt additives so unique and makes me proud to be a part of Cargill Asphalt Solutions and the asphalt industry in general.”

For the future, Denneman believes increasing the sustainability and safety of existing products is easily achievable.

“Reducing the asphalt mixing temperature by 30 degrees Celsius across the board is definitely achievable. The industry should be aiming for that and we’ll certainly be supporting that,” Denneman says.

“Because the benefits in terms of energy savings, carbon footprint savings and also worker health and safety are just so clear, using products such as these is the way to go. It’s very low hanging fruit.”

Puma Bitumen’s warm mix asphalt, including Cargill’s Anova, is now available across Australia, with many projects already reporting impressive results.

“Our products are available from all terminals. We’re ready for customers to use these products every day,” Denneman says.

This article was originally published in the February edition of our magazine. To read the magazine, click here.