A Washington company says it has developed a way to capture carbon from natural gas and use it to make asphalt to build roads.
Modern Hydrogen uses a process called methane pyrolysis that produces clean hydrogen out of methane and captures the carbon from that gas before it reaches the atmosphere. Methane, which is four parts hydrogen and one part carbon, is the largest component of natural gas.
The captured carbon is a solid carbon byproduct called “carbon black” that can be used as binder in hot-mix asphalt, cold patch and asphalt sealers, the company says.
The carbon-captured asphalt has already been used for sealing an asphalt parking lot in Portland, Oregon, and for paving a driveway with hot-mix asphalt in Seattle (see the video at the end of this story). The product has also been used in private parking lots and driveways in California, New Mexico, Florida and in Alberta, Canada, the company says.
Road Recyclers, an Austin, Texas-based designer of asphalt binders for the road recycling industry, has signed on to be “the first to incorporate carbon stripped from natural gas in public roads,” according to Modern Hydrogen. Road Recyclers has been testing Modern Hydrogen products and says it is now ready to begin field trials with partner municipal and state transportation agencies.
