Abstract: The vacuum residue suitable for preparation of key component of the hard pavement bitumen was screened. The key component from the selected VR was obtained through deep distillation, deep oxidation and solvent deasphalting. The performance of the key component was investigated. The test indicated that the prepared key component can improve the high temperature performance of the base bitumen and has a good universality. The hard pavement bitumen with good high temperature performance can be steady produced through blending this hard component at a suitable ratio, and the bitumen mixture produced from this hard pavement bitumen also has a good high temperature performance. Meantime, the pelletizing technology for key component was developed for flexible utilization and transportation of it. The suitable viscosity range for pelletizing is from 600 cP to 6000 cP. The hard road bitumen produced by key component is used in the real highway engineering. After more than 2 years of weather and traffic test, the bitumen pavement has no ruts or cracks and maintains excellent performance.

Key words: hard bitumen, key component, solvent deasphalting, high temperature performance