Multigrade bitumen

The Biturox® process is used worldwide for the highly economical production of bitumen in accordance with international standards, as well as for the production of specialty bitumen (multigrades), industrial bitumen, and polymer-modified bitumen (PMB).

Compliance with various national regulations is always ensured:

• Penetration grades (e.g., European and most national standards)
• Performance grades (e.g., U.S. SHRP standards)
• Viscosity grades (e.g., Australian and Indian standards)

Biturox® plants produce large volumes of high-quality bitumen at the lowest CAPEX and OPEX costs.

Key benefits for producers include:

• High-quality bitumen can be efficiently produced through downstream chemical processing from a wider range of crude oils and refinery feedstock. When only light-to-medium crude oil is available, the Biturox® process is often the only viable option for producing quality bitumen.
• The properties of the final product are precisely controlled throughout the process.
• Continuous operation ensures consistent quality and high production capacity.
• Adjustments to bitumen properties (grades) can be made without interrupting operations.
• The process is fully automated and integrated into a modern refinery for safe operation.
• Compared to straight-run bitumen, Biturox® bitumen has a flatter viscosity curve and a higher PEN index. This makes it more resistant to highly variable climatic conditions.
• Its high resistance to rutting, excellent fatigue durability and outstanding aging stability ensure a longer service life for road pavements.
• Complete implementation of all required infrastructure (tank farms, truck and rail loading stations) from a single source.

More than 40 Biturox® plants have been built worldwide.

Benefit from Pörner’s over four decades of experience in bitumen plant engineering.

Pörner supplies modern bitumen plants of all sizes, from specialty units to large-scale plants with production capacities of up to one million tons per year, all from a single source:

• with proven process engineering solutions down to the smallest detail,
• equipped with the best components available on the global market, and
• leveraging locally available cost-efficient resources.

This approach ensures the fast, cost-effective realization of optimal, highly automated, low-maintenance, environmentally friendly plants that are seamlessly integrated into modern refineries.

Scope of work: 

• Consulting, pre-project studies, feasibility studies
• Feedstock evaluation, pilot plant product manufacturing, analysis
• Project management
• Process development, licensing & basic engineering
• Detail engineering (equipment, machinery, piping, steel structures, electrical & instrumentation, automation, civil works), authority engineering
• Procurement of equipment and materials, logistics
• Contracting of construction and installation companies, construction supervision
• Personnel training, plant commissioning
• Acceptance tests
• Documentation

In our in-house research laboratory, we develop custom Biturox® solutions that meet international product standards using available crude oils and refinery intermediates.

Our newly developed Biturox® Pilot Plant 2.0 is equipped with a process control system that regulates process air, reactor pressure, and process water. With two reactors of 7.5 and 15 liters capacity, it offers greater flexibility.

The main objective of Biturox® research is to optimize the product quality by identifying the ideal feedstock blend and defining the process parameters in the Biturox® reactor. At the beginning of a project, Pörner conducts test programs in the pilot plant to maximize the quality of the given raw materials (e.g., PEN index between -1 and +1, aging resistance, etc.).

We store all results from fundamental and applied research, experience gained during Biturox® plant development, construction, and commissioning, feedback from Biturox® licensees, the latest Biturox® upgrading process findings (chemical bitumen upgrading), and performance reports from Biturox® bitumen use in a comprehensive database.

Based on this data, Pörner determines the most efficient and cost-effective method for producing high-quality bitumen tailored to your needs.