Brisa Concessão Rodoviária (BCR) and the Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa (ISEL) created the Living Lab to research innovative sidewalk materials that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase efficiency in the use of natural resources for the conservation of the highway network.
In total, six pilot tests have already been carried out on a stretch of almost 10 kilometers on the A3, the freeway that connects Porto to Valença, and on the A6, which connects Marateca to Caia.
The materials used include recycled plastics and rubber from end-of-life tires, using a new technology that is unprecedented in Europe. This is an innovative solution that consists of the complete digestion of recycled rubber from end-of-life tires in bitumen, allowing its physical and chemical characteristics to be altered, increasing the durability and resilience of the sidewalks and also enhancing the use of recovered bituminous mixtures.
These tests make it possible to evaluate the use of bituminous mixtures recovered from sidewalks, in percentages of 20% and 30%, which for the first time will be used in wearing courses on national highways. Other tests focus on the use of graphene, which has the potential to increase the durability of sidewalks.
The solutions being tested make it possible to reduce the extraction of aggregates from quarries, as well as the consumption of bitumen from oil distillation, either by using recovered bituminous mixtures or by using end-of-life tires or recycled plastics.
These tests aim to assess the possibilities of reducing the environmental impact of freeway maintenance, with a potential annual reduction of 600 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, the equivalent of 23,000 car journeys between Lisbon and Porto, and a reduction of 19,000 tons of waste, contributing to the recovery of these materials and the implementation of an increasingly circular economy.
The Living Lab is a project open to various partners and suppliers, which already includes partner companies such as Cepsa, JRS Rettenmaier, Polyco and Iterchimica and suppliers such as Sirplaste, Gabriel Couto, Mota Engil, Alves Ribeiro and Tecnovia. The aim of BCR and ISEL is to increase the number of solutions and partners joining the initiative.