Bitumen by Biturox®: Pörner operates a product development laboratory for bitumen that is unique in the world

State-of-the-art Biturox® test facility in Schwechat

Pörner’s Biturox® Research Center in Schwechat develops tailor-made quality bitumen from a wide variety of crude oils and refinery intermediates for bitumen producing companies.

Pörner project manager Martin Schneider (left) hands over the key to Mark Seper, who as head of Pörner Process Engineering will conduct numerous tests on the brand new plant and expand Pörner’s knowledge of the complex substance bitumen.

Biturox® pilot plant in Schwechat

The Biturox® pilot plants operated by Pörner since the 1990s were previously located within the OMV laboratories. However, last year, Pörner decided to develop its own Biturox® laboratory for product development in Schwechat. The new facility enables Pörner to execute research orders in a more targeted and faster way as well as independently of external resources. For this purpose, own premises were rented in the new laboratory building of the OMV refinery Schwechat.

Flexible pilot plant 2.0

For greater flexibility, the new pilot plant is equipped with two reactors of different batch sizes, a smaller one with about 7.5 liters and a larger one with 15 liters to produce reference samples. In addition, the laboratory is equipped with basic measuring instruments for determining penetration and softening points and others. Furthermore, Pörner added a high-shear mixer to produce test quantities of polymer-modified bitumen (PmB).

After completion at the end of 2022, Pörner will now carry out Biturox® pilot tests independently and, thus, support bitumen-producing refineries worldwide in the correct selection of their feedstocks and the right dimensioning of Biturox® plant components.

Optimization of efficiency AND quality

To optimally design a Biturox® plant for the production of high-quality road and industrial bitumen, analyses of the intended feedstocks and practical pilot tests with generation of reference samples as proof of product qualities are essential prerequisites. Based on the test results, the plant components (including reactor capacity) are then determined, and product guarantees are defined.

Pörner has analyzed almost all bitumen-capable feed components worldwide in more than four decades and conducted hundreds of pilot tests for bitumen-producing refineries. The results are available to Biturox® licensees in a comprehensive database.

With the Biturox® process and an intelligent selection of alternative feedstock components, it was always possible to produce the highest-quality bitumens in multigrade quality (PEN index greater than 0) at particularly low cost.

More information about the Biturox® technology here

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