Sustainable recovery of waste vegetable cooking oil and aged bitumen: Optimized modification for short and long term aging cases

•WVCO can be recovered effectively as a rejuvenator in order to recover the aged bitumen.•The available rates of WVCO are 3% and 6% for short and long term aging case, respectively.•Test methods take an important role to determine the optimum rate of WVCO.•PRI is an effective and easy methods to determine the optimum rate of WVCO for modification.•Recovery of WVCO and aged bitumen provides humanistic, ecologic and economic benefits. Bitumen ages in the short and long-term due to environmental conditions. As the bitumen ages, it loses its original properties and flexibility. Hardened bitumen causes certain distresses in pavement that may endanger traffic safety and reduce travel comfort. Bitumen is one of recoverable material, however some techniques may not be ecological due to considerable energy, time, and cost. On the other hand, recovering of aged bitumen might be eco-friendlier, energy-efficient, and economic by using bio-based waste materials such as waste vegetable cooking oils (WVCO). In this perspective, this paper was established on the idea of sustainable recovery of aged bitumen and WVCO. Base bitumen was aged in case of short-term (ST) and long-term (LT) in laboratory condition and modified with WVCO ranging from 2 to 10% by weight of bitumen. To determine the effect of WVCO modification on aged bitumen conventional and rheological test methods were utilized. To find the optimum rate of WVCO for full recovery of aged bitumen, an index called Pure Rejuvenation Index (PRI) was specified and applied for each test results. It can be concluded from PRI analyses that WVCO can be used as rejuvenator to recover aged bitumen and approximately 3% and 6% of WVCO are required for ST and LT aged bitumen cases, respectively. However, different test methods yield different optimum rates of WVCO for ST and LT aged bitumen. Recovering of WVCO and aged bitumen by using together may provide environmental protection and conservation of resources.