Nowadays in the world, due to the constant desire for recycling, many countries are considering the use of recycled plastics on roads. Modification of bitumen for roads in Kazakhstan is considered one of the most suitable and popular approaches. This paper presents the results of research on the modification of bitumen by recycled plastics from waste materials. The paper describes the details of the use of plastic waste as bitumen modifiers, with a specific focus on recycled plastics and how they can potentially be used to enhance bitumen performance and the road durability. The main physical and mechanical characteristics of the modified bitumen were determined after routine tests, penetration and plasticity, softening temperature, brittleness temperature on Fraas and microscopic analysis. The morphology of the modified bitumen was studied using scanning electron microscopy. The results confirm that the modified bitumen complies with the requirements for polymer-bitumen binder of Kazakhstani standards and is suitable for the production of modified bitumen by its physical and chemical characteristics.

This review discusses recent research findings spanning the last two decades concerning ultrasonic technologies applicable to the oil, gas, and coal sectors. Various experiments conducted in laboratories have demonstrated the efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and environmental friendliness of ultrasound in recovering and processing oil, bitumen, coal, and oil shale. Ultrasound enhances formation permeability, coal gas permeability, and oil viscosity, particularly when delivered in short, powerful pulses at medium frequencies. Combining ultrasound with traditional recovery methods has shown promising results, boosting recovery efficiency by up to 100%. At the same time, ultrasonic treatment reduces the use of traditional reagents, thereby reducing environmental pollution. Moreover, ultrasound treatment shows potential in tasks such as separating oil–water emulsions, desulfurization, dewaxing oil, coal enrichment, and extracting valuable metals from metal-bearing shales through hydrometallurgical leaching. However, the widespread industrial implementation of ultrasonic technology necessitates further field and mathematical research.

The article presents the results of research on the production of polymer-bitumen binder (PBB) based on mixtures of non-oxidized and oxidized petroleum products, namely high-viscosity tar, darkened vacuum distillate, and oxidized petroleum bitumen 70/100, obtained at technological installations of Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) “JV Caspi Bitum’’ and styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS) block copolymer brand L 30-01A modifier in the presence of a stabilizer. The results obtained show that the introduction of the SBS modifier in the presence of a sulfur stabilizer improves the performance characteristics of PBB, such as elasticity, ductility, softening temperature, penetration, and brittleness temperature.

According to scientific research from different countries, crumb rubber obtained from end-of-life tires (ELT) during processing can improve the properties of the asphalt mixture, thereby extending the service life of the road surface. This paper presents the modification of bitumen with industrial rubber waste. The modification of bitumen for roads is considered one of the most suitable and popular approaches. This research paper describes the details of using different types of crumb rubber as bitumen modifiers. The modified bitumen’s main physical and mechanical characteristics were determined after conventional tests: penetration and ductility, softening point, and Fraas brittleness point. In order to obtain a rubber–asphalt concrete mixture with improved performance characteristics, the viscoelastic and rheological properties of rubber–bitumen binders and their comparison with polymer–bitumen binders were also studied. The research results show that with increasing temperature, the values of viscosity, shear stress and complex shear modulus of all studied bitumen systems decrease, the values of the phase shift angle increase, and the size of the rubber particles has a greater influence on the properties of bitumen systems.

The use of rubber-polymer composites ELTC (End of Life Tire Compound) for bitumen modification was investigated. ELTC contains not only devulcanized rubber from used car tires, but also used plastics (polymers) such as polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). ELTC is obtained using the method of rubber devulcanization using a selective catalyst that allows selectively decomposing sulfide bonds at relatively low temperatures, while preserving most of the macromolecular chains. The characteristics of the asphalt binder improved after the modification of ELTC. After modification, the base asphalt binder became more homogeneous, and the thermal stability of the base asphalt binder increased. ELTC is evenly distributed, the compatibility between the components of the modified asphalt binder is good, which proves the uniformity of the modified asphalt binders. The results show that all ELTC formulations improve the softening temperature and increase their resistance to plastic deformation in the summer.

Transformations of high-molecular-weight compounds of oil sand natural bitumen under the heat treatment were studied in this work. For that purpose the natural bitumen isolated from oil sand taken from the Beke field (Kazakhstan) was used as a substrate. Thermal processing of natural bitumen leads to a general change in the chemical composition of components and to an increase in the output of certain fractions. The contents of oil, tar and asphaltenes were determined and the elemental composition of tar-asphaltene compounds was evaluated. Molecular structures of the tar and asphaltene components of natural bitumen before and after cracking have been defined from the data of elemental analysis, NMR spectroscopy and molecular weight. The high molecular compounds were presented as giant molecules containing small aromatic islands some of which were linked by aliphatic chains, that was proved by infrared spectroscopy.