Extraction of Chemical Constituents of Bitumen Using a Mixed Solvent System

Ezekiel Oluyemi Odebunmi¹, Abimbola George Olaremu^2*

¹Department of Chemistry, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria.
²Department of Chemical Sciences, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, Nigeria.

DOI: 10.4236/ojapps.2015.58047                

Abstract

Several solvents had been used to extract the SARA (Saturate, Aromatic, Resin and Asphaltene) constituents of bitumen. The quantification of such extracts also abounds in open literature but in this work an attempt was made to determine the quality of extraction as a feed stock for processing bitumen using a mixed solvent system. A mixture of heptane and toluene was used to compare with the standard method using heptane. The components were analysed for functional groups of compound types presented in them using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrophotometry technique (FTIR). The quality of bitumen component extract was not significantly affected by the method of extraction as recommended by the ASTM. The components are mixture of different class of hydrocarbons such as saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons which conformed to what had earlier been reported by other researchers.

Keywords

Bitumen, Sara, Ftir, Solvent System

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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