Benninghoven value

Reuse of asphalt

Benninghoven has decades of experience with recycling reclaimed asphalt. The reuse of reclaimed asphalt – obtained by milling off old asphalt during road resurfacing, for example – reduces the need for primary raw materials like virgin mineral while significantly cutting material costs. In addition to this, reclaimed asphalt already contains bitumen, which is also reused and therefore saves on the most expensive ingredient in asphalt production.

Benninghoven offers different cold and hot recycling feed systems for this, including the leading recycling technology – the Benninghoven hot-gas generator. It allows up to 100%RAP material to be added while maintaining low emissions. The Benninghoven REVOC system is a patented innovation that was premiered by Benninghoven at the Bauma 2022 exhibition. The new Retrofit solution is a supplement for existing asphalt mixing plants equipped with one or more recycling systems and it significantly reduces the total carbon concentrations in the exhaust gas. This also makes REVOC an important contribution to securing the future of the plant site.

Production of reduced-temperature asphalt

The drying and heating processes for virgin mineral and recycling material are particularly energy-intensive in asphalt production. Fuel and emissions can be saved if authorities and owners use reduced-temperature asphalt types. a term describing asphaltic mixtures with a final temperature of around 120 °C. This represents a roughly 30% reduction compared with conventional mixtures, which typically require a temperature of around 160 °C. However, the potential savings in terms of energy and carbon are far greater:18,000 kWh and 6,000 kg of CO₂ are saved in the production of 2,000 t of asphalt – on a daily basis.

Benninghoven Asphalt mixing plants can produce high-quality reduced-temperature asphalt in a reliable process. One important technology for this is a foam bitumen module, which Benninghoven also offers as a Retrofit solution (plug & work). Foam bitumen is interesting because this binder requires only one auxiliary material for producing reduced-temperature asphalt, namely water – which will already be readily available at any asphalt mixing plant. Mixing hot bitumen with water multiplies the volume many times, which is why this process is also referred to as “foaming” the bitumen. The released surface energy ensures that the binder moistens the mineral very well during the mixing process even at low temperatures, temporarily generating installation properties that are comparable to those of hot asphalt.

Using renewable energies

With the latest MULTI JET burner generation, Benninghoven offers a forward-looking solution for the use of a wide variety of fuels in asphalt production.

The burner system enables the use of a broad spectrum of energy sources – from fossil fuels like coal and oil to renewable fuels like BtL (biomass-to-liquid) and wood, and even 100% hydrogen.

Benninghoven is already able to offer solutions that can utilize green hydrogen as a burner fuel for the drying and heating of materials. Simply by switching the burner fuel to hydrogen, carbon emissions can be cut by 38% – and this figure is attainable even without the use of RAP material.
Source: https://www.wirtgen-group.com/de-de/unternehmen/wirtgen-group/nachhaltigkeit/emissionen-reduzieren/

In addition, thanks to our modern burner test rig, customer-specific fuels can also be tested and optimized to evaluate their combustion and emission profiles.