Environmental pollution with petroleum products has become a major problem worldwide, and is a consequence of industrial growth. The development of sustainable methods for the removal of petroleum substances and their derivatives from aquatic and terrestrial environments and from air has therefore become extremely important today. Advanced technologies and materials dedicated to this purpose are relatively expensive; sorption methods involving mineral sorbents are therefore popular and are widely described in the scientific literature. Mineral materials are easily available, low-cost, universal adsorbents and have a number of properties that make them suitable for the removal of petroleum substances. This review describes recent works on the use of natural, synthetic and modified mineral adsorbents for the removal of petroleum substances and their derivatives from roads, water and air.

Among warm mix asphalt (WMA) technologies, asphalt foaming techniques offer high potential in terms of decreasing production temperature. Reluctance of manufacturers to introduce this technology is connected with the concerns of a large investment costs. However, there are known additives which, through asphalt foaming, allow a decrease in temperatures by approximately 30 °C; the use of these additives do not involve expensive investment in order to change the asphalt mix production method. These additives are zeolites, that is, minerals of the aluminosilicate group, the crystalline structure of which contains water bound in a specific way. Its release, at mix asphalt production temperatures, causes asphalt foaming. It is currently known that zeolites can be used in WMA, including natural and synthetic zeolites obtained using chemical reagents and waste. This review presents the results of studies of WMA technology, including the effects of zeolite addition on asphalt properties and mix asphalt, as well as related environmental, economic, and technological benefits.

In recent years, numerous studies have been carried out on new technologies allowing to reduce of mix asphalt production temperatures. One of the possibilities is to foam the asphalt with “water-containing” additives, which include zeolites. So far, mainly synthetic zeolites of the Linde A structure type, obtained from chemical reagents, and natural clinoptilolite have been used in WMA technology. In this studies, the synthetic zeolites produced from fly ashes with 4 different types of crystalline structure were analyzed. Zeolite materials were characterized by textural parameters and thermal analysis. The amount of zeolite added to asphalt was 0, 3, 5, 7 wt % in relation to the weight of asphalt. Determination of dynamic viscosity was performed at two temperatures: 135 and 160 and 4 time intervals. The tests were performed for two asphalt binders: 35/50 and 100/150 penetration grade. As a conclusion, it was found that the viscosity of asphalt pastes with zeolitic materials increases with the increase in the amount of zeolite added. The increase level depends mainly on the textural parameters. The potential usefulness of fly ash derived zeolites in the process of asphalt foaming, which depends mainly on the amount of water contained in the zeolite structure and the method of its release, has been proved.