Directa Plus, a producer and supplier of graphene-based products for use in consumer and industrial markets, and its partner Iterchimica, an Italian based world leader in products that enhance asphalt performance, are pleased to announce the world's first trial of graphene enhanced asphalt at an international airport.
The six month trial will take place at Rome's Fiumicino airport on taxiway Alpha Alpha, a high traffic taxiway used for class E and F intercontinental aircraft such as Boeing 777s and Airbus A380s. Rome Fiumicino Airport (also known as Rome Leonardo da Vinci Airport) is Italy's busiest airport with some 43 million passengers handled in 2018, of which 31.5 million originated from abroad. Total aircraft movements for 2018 amounted to 307,736.
The project will use the asphalt additive Gipave, developed by Directa Plus and Iterchimica, containing the Company's G+ graphene and will be in collaboration with G.ECO S.r.l., part of Italy's largest multi-utility company Gruppo A2A, and the University of Milan-Bicocca.
Gipave is the result of a three-year research programme with a patent filed in 2017. In an initial trial in Italy, Gipave was confirmed as providing significant benefits compared to traditional asphalt in all areas tested: service life, resistance to the passage of vehicles, resistance to deformation and permanent plastic deformation. In addition, once laid, asphalt with Gipave can be 100 per cent recycled, which can reduce the extraction of new materials from quarries and first-use bitumen. Gipave is currently being tested in the UK in Oxfordshire with the co-operation of Oxfordshire County Council and the prime contractor, Skanska AB.
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