• Sharona Mohammed
• Rehana Ali
• Rean Maharaj
• Daniel White

Trinidad and Tobago (TT) is an industrialized economy with a vibrant manufacturing sector. The manufacture of edible oil produces spent media filter (SMF), which poses negative environmental and health impacts, is currently dumped using indiscriminate disposal practices. The TT National Environment Policy was developed to enhance recovery, recycling and reuse of waste material, providing alternative avenues for disposal and creating economic activity. Through this initiative, SMF was assessed for its reuse potential as a performance enhancer in Trinidad Lake Asphalt (TLA) and Trinidad Petroleum Bitumen (TPB) for road paving applications. Studies evaluating the rheological properties of these blends showed that for maximum stiffness, elasticity and viscosity, the optimum dosages were at 1% TLA-SMF and 2% TPB-SMF blends. For TLA-SMF blends, an improvement in the rutting resistance was observed with the 1% blend while the fatigue cracking improved for both 1% and 8% blends; TPB-SMF improvements were noted with the 1% blend for fatigue cracking and the 2% blend for rutting resistance. These optimum performing TLA-SMF and TPB-SMF blends also demonstrated superior temperature susceptibility characteristics. The study shows favourable results that SMF can be reused as a performance enhancer in TT asphaltic materials to mitigate SMF disposal issues.

waste material reuse, road paving, rheological properties, rutting resistance, fatigue cracking resistance

"Reuse potential of Spent Media Filter as an additive for Trinidad road paving applications", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 2, page no.b295-b305, February-2022, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2202133.pdf

"Reuse potential of Spent Media Filter as an additive for Trinidad road paving applications", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.9, Issue 2, page no. ppb295-b305, February-2022, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2202133.pdf