Results literally Pioneering trials in the UK suggest that graphene-rich roads can pave the way for the future. According to Essex County officialsA pilot test outside London has shown that walkways impregnated with one of the world's strongest known materials outperform and last longer. traditional asphalt. What is the name of the new combination of super streets? Hypave.
Road maintenance remains one of the most costly problems facing local, state and federal governments. In 2021 valued at $206 billion was spent on repairing roads and streets. This is almost six percent of all available funds – and far from enough. According to Pew ResearchThe United States is also considering at least $105 billion in deferred maintenance projects.
One of the most recognizable and common problems is relatively common. Cracks are inevitable on any road due to weakening materials and repeated stress over time. Once enough cars drive over these cracks, pieces will begin to break off, forming the infamous potholes that cause tires to blow out and shock absorbers to deteriorate. In addition to municipal repair costs, the average pothole-related vehicle repair costs about $600, with U.S. car owners combined annually paying about $26.5 billion..
Asphalt is typically made from a mixture of rock aggregates held together by a viscous petroleum-based substance called bitumen. Recently, however, engineers have begun experimenting with adding a graphite-derived material, graphene, to this mixture. Graphene, first commercially adopted in the early 2000s, consists of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in honeycomb lattices, making it incredibly elastic and superconducting. Being a million times thinner than a human hair, it is also the thinnest two-dimensional structure known.
Graphene already harnessed in the production of electric batteries, semiconductors and other products, but because it is 200 times stronger than steel, city planners also see its potential as a construction additive. In 2022 Essex County announced plans to test asphalt combined with graphene to form a road material called Gipave. Workers subsequently laid more than 165 tonnes of Gipave onto the lanes of the new access road near London. They also added a second lane using traditional asphalt for control. The Gipave was then exposed to thousands of car and truck tires each season for the next three years.
At the end of the experiment, outside engineers extracted core samples from both tracks for laboratory testing and analysis. Specifically, they measured how much pressure was required to deform each dry sample, and then tested them again after 72 hours of immersion in water. The graphene-enriched asphalt performed 10 percent better in hardness tests, as well as 20 percent better when it came to water sensitivity. They also noticed that when Gipave cracked, it was the stone aggregate that cracked, not the bitumen or the bond between the two ingredients. This means that graphene actually improves the overall durability of the coating, making it safer and more likely to fail. more environmentally friendly option.
If there's one obvious downside to the Gipave, it's the price. Engineers evaluate Gipave costs about 30 cents per square foot to use. At first glance, less than one dollar may not seem like a lot of money, but the cost of road repairs increases exponentially. In the US, one mile of four-lane highway occupies at least about 253,000 square feet. The country has about 4.2 million highway milesmuch of which is much wider than four lanes. In this (extremely conservative) scenario, repairing all US highways with Gipave would cost approximately $124.3 billion. On the other hand, a promising start would be to simply start filling existing potholes with graphene-reinforced asphalt.
