Research Progress on Diatomite-Modified Asphalt

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_10How to use a DOI?

Keywords

diatomite; modified asphalt; road performance; mechanism

Abstract

As traffic loads and environmental stresses intensify, asphalt pavements face prominent issues, including high-temperature rutting, low-temperature cracking, and moisture damage. Diatomite, a natural porous mineral material, has been widely used in asphalt modification to enhance pavement performance due to its high specific surface area, strong adsorption capacity, and good stability. Studies indicate that diatomite requires a drying pretreatment before blending with hot asphalt, with an optimal content generally ranging from 9% to 20%, depending on the type of base asphalt and the performance requirements. Through microscopic analysis techniques such as SEM, FTIR, and DSR combined with macroscopic pavement performance evaluation, it was found that the interaction between diatomaceous earth and asphalt primarily manifests as physical effects. Mechanisms such as adsorbing light components, enhancing interfacial bonding strength, and mechanical interlocking, diatomaceous earth-modified asphalt exhibits improved high-temperature stability by 58.2%–138% compared to base asphalt, enhanced low-temperature crack resistance by 10.5%–29.5%, and increased residual stability in water stability tests by 12%–23.3%.Practical engineering applications demonstrate that diatomite-modified asphalt significantly enhances rutting resistance and long-term durability of asphalt pavements, showing great potential for widespread use. Future efforts should focus on optimizing material standardization and process equipment to promote broader application of these technologies.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Hao Zhang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - Research Progress on Diatomite-Modified Asphalt
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 8th International Conference on Civil Architecture, Hydropower and Engineering Management (CAHEM 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 78
EP  - 93
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_10
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-600-5_10
ID  - Zhang2026
ER  -