AIM-listed graphene company Directa Plus (DCTA) has announced it has re-surfaced the first road in the world with a supermodifier containing graphene.
The re-surfacing was done as part of a commercial test on a road surface for a section of Rome's Strada Provinciale Ardeatina.
The successful lab tests showed that Ecopave, which is based on Directa Plus’s Graphene Plus product, can increase fatigue resistance by up to 250% - significantly extending the service life of the road surface at a lower life cycle cost than existing tarmacs.
Ecopave has been developed by both Directa Plus and Iterchimica, an Italian-based company that creates products that "enhance both asphalt performance and the laying of road surfaces in order to increase safety, environmental sustainability, and efficiency."
Once laid, Ecopave can also be 100% recycled, which can reduce the extraction of new materials from quarries and first-use bitumen.
The product, a patent for which was filed in 2017, is the result of a three-year research programme.
Directa Plus is a producer and supplier of graphene-based products for use in consumer and industrial markets, and its share price was up 75% by market close on the day of the announcement.
Giulio Cesareo, Founder and CEO of Directa Plus, said: "Environmental sustainability is one of our core values, embedded in our whole production process and in the life cycle of our products."
“The Ecopave opportunity is substantial and we look forward to a time when motor vehicles with tyres containing G+ drive on roads surfaced with tarmacs containing G+.”
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