CAIRO - 23 March 2024: The Egyptian Ministry of Transport uses modern road paving equipment, which is accompanied by new technology that was introduced to Egypt, to pave roads and enables the reuse of damaged layers of roads for paving again.
This technology, which depends on cooling rather than heating, saves a lot of time and money and reduces pollution, as it uses now FDR machines, for full depth recycling of asphalt and foundation layers and CIR machines, for cold recycling of asphalt pavement layers.
With the state’s tendency toward local manufacturing, reducing imports, preserving the environment, and reducing pollution and emissions, the Ministry of Transport, under the guidance of Lieutenant General Kamel Al-Wazir, Minister of Transport, established the first factory to produce asphalt emulsions, which are materials derived from the bitumen used in the asphalt industry, as bitumen needs a high temperature to melt it, and care must be taken to produce asphalt emulsions.
The bitumen arrives hot at the paving site, which consumes a lot of energy and fuel, but with the establishment of the factory it became possible to extract materials for road maintenance and paving without heating the bitumen, through chemical reactions.
For his part, Engineer Sobhi Rabie, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Company for the Construction and Maintenance of Transport and Airport Facilities, affiliated with the Roads and Bridges Authority, confirmed that the idea of establishing an asphalt emulsions factory came in conjunction with the operation of modern paving equipment, indicating that emulsions are used in the road industry and are used by countries, which preserves the environment.
Engineer Sobhi Rabie added that Egypt is among 9 countries in the world that was able to produce a sensitive material used in road maintenance, “microservice,” which is among the non-traditional materials produced by the factory and is used to maintain roads. It is a protection layer that allows extending the life of roads for at least 5 years. The factory also produces other materials used in maintaining potholes on roads without heating, and we produce them in large quantities that allow us to export to several countries.
“Rabie” explained that some materials were produced in Egypt in a factory for the Aspec Petroleum Company and another factory for the private sector, but they did not manufacture road maintenance products.
The factory produces 10 tons per hour and covers local needs. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Company for the Construction and Maintenance of Transport Facilities and Airports indicated that the factory saves road maintenance costs by 30% annually, explaining that paving a kilometer of roads using traditional methods consumes approximately 1,200 liters of solar, but using the factory technology, only 180 liters of solar is used, which is a very big difference, which shows the amount of savings in addition to preserving the environment and reducing paving time and effort.
In turn, Engineer Ahmed Gamal El-Din, Director of the Asphalt Emulsions Factory, confirmed that the factory is the first center for asphalt emulsions in Egypt, noting that before the application of recycling technology, damaged road pavement was disposed, but now it is recycled and reused.
He added that the factory was established in 2020 through the Egyptian Company for the Construction and Maintenance of Roads and Airports, affiliated with the General Authority for Roads and Bridges at the Ministry of Transport, and that the factory has two chemical reactors to break down the components of the bitumen used in paving roads without heating through the introduction of chemical materials.
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