'Is This Asphalt Organic?' The Future of Green Roads

When you think "future roads," you might start thinking of glistening stretches of metal under hovering cars, or perhaps endless blocks of sturdy solar panels that shine with LEDs. Now, researcher have announced that the next generation of roads might simply be green - made from discarded plant product rather than oil-based bitumen.

And while corn husk roads don't sound nearly as exciting as the neon roads of Tron, they well definitely have conservationists and climatologists alike ecstatic.

That's at least according to Ted Slaghek, a senior scientist for the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), who presented a lignin-based road concept at this year's annual meeting of the American Chemical Society.

But just what is lignin? It's that common-but-complex material that makes trees sturdy and cornstalks stand. It reportedly accounts for nearly a third of all the organic carbon in the biosphere, and yet, until now, we really didn't have much of a use for it. Instead, it was often burned to generate electricity at paper mills, but burning this material is not only wasteful, but releases soot and greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

That's why Slaghek and his colleagues are thrilled about their success in creating a lignin-based seal for asphalt mix. Traditionally, a by-product of crude oil production called bitumen is the main sticky ingredient in asphalt and roof sealants. However, it's no secret that oil is a limited commodity, and even the by-product of its refinement may soon disappear.

"In the long term, we have to move to renewable products that we can harvest every year," Slaghek said in a statement. "It should be logical to use natural organic raw materials instead of crude oil."

Still, there are some kinks to work out. As things stand, the team has developed lignin mixtures that can extend the lifespan of a road in warm climates, but in cold areas, these mixtures become exceptionally brittle, increasing the chances that the road will chunk and crack, potentially damaging cars.

That's why the researchers are developing more than one lignin cocktail - a variety of asphalts for different climes.

The team also plans to build a 100-meter stretch of bicycle path this year using one of the lignin mixtures - a proof-of-concept that a sustainable "green road" can truly work out.

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