Aged asphalt requires rejuvenators to restore its performance. However, the rejuvenation efficiency of conventional rejuvenators has reached a bottleneck, manifested as high volatility at elevated temperatures and limited disaggregation effects on asphaltene clusters. In this study, a sunflower oil-loaded nanomaterial was designed based on hollow mesoporous silica nanoparticles (HMSN). The silica shell effectively prevented volatilization of the rejuvenator and transported the encapsulated sunflower oil to asphaltene aggregates via polar attraction, enabling targeted rejuvenation through gradual release. The rejuvenation effects were investigated using dynamic shear rheometry (DSR), bending beam rheometry (BBR), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Experimental results indicated that HMSN exhibited a loading capacity of up to 343.3% for sunflower oil (SO). Furthermore, DSR testing revealed that HMSN@SO reduced the optimal rejuvenator dosage by 25%–33% compared to direct sunflower oil addition. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) observations revealed that HMSN@SO accumulated around the bee-like structures of asphaltenes, confirming its targeted delivery and highly efficient rejuvenation effect on asphaltenes. • Hollow Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles(HMSN) with uniform particle size, excellent dispersion, and high specific surface area was synthesized using the sol-gel method. • HMSN loads the asphalt rejuvenator into its mesoporous and cavitary structure via vacuum impregnation(HMSN@SO). • The addition of HMSN@SO reduces the amount of asphalt rejuvenator required. • The silicon hydroxyl on the surface of HMSN form targeted attraction with asphaltenes. • The HMSN @ SO composite rejuvenator achieved deep reactivation by efficiently softening and diluting the oxidized substances in the aged asphalt.
Xie et al. (Sun,) studied this question.