Sulfonation of Asphalt in the Presence of Solvent

Sulfonation of asphalt in the presence of a solvent (1, 1, 2-trichloroethane) was studied to prepare an ion exchanger. When asphalt was sulfonated in the presence of a solvent, the yield of the reaction product was higher than in the reaction in its absence, and the effect increased with increasing amount of solvent.The amount of sulfonation reagent such as sulfuric acid, oleum or sulfur trioxide required to obtain the optimum yield was diminished by presence of a solvent.When asphalt dissolved in solvent was sulfonated with sulfuric acid or oleum, a granular product was formed. Some promising results as ion exchanger were obtained from the measurements of the total ion exchange capacity of the sulfonated asphalt.