Environmental issues feature increasingly in today's social and commercial world as less harmful and better ways are sought to manufacture and use a wide variety of products. This is why GEO320 is such an important invention, not only is it the first commercial development of a synthetic bio bitumen binder for the manufacture of asphalt that is made from non-petroleum based renewable resources eg sugar and molasses but it also possesses increased mechanical and rheological properties to that of normal road grade residue bitumen. Ecopave Australia Bio-Bitumen Asphalt Concrete Research has shown that normal residue bitumen requires hot storage to remain in a viscous suspension until the time of asphalt mixing process. GEO320 MRH bitumen on the other hand is stored in a dry granulated form which is added to the hot aggregate mix at the time of asphalt manufacturing, this not only eliminates wastage (oxidized) bitumen and fuming but saves on fuel costs. The environment and the health of asphalt workers in the road construction industry was a high priority consideration in the twenty years that it took to research and develop GEO320 asphalt bitumen in Australia. Ecopave Australia has made numerous improvements into the chemistry and nature of petroleum based residue bitumen over the years and has applied this knowledge into GEO320 MRH bitumen technology.

One of the discoveries that Ecopave Australia research has made is, that by replacing the processing oil quantity in the bitumen formulation by an effective plasticizer in small amounts has the same effect as using neat oil. This plasticizer addition completely eliminates the "binder shift" effect thereby increasing skid resistance of asphalt surfaces and dramatically lowering the fuming and emissions at conventional asphalt processing temperatures. Ecopave Australia research has also made a breakthrough in developing the Micro Mastic Matrix (MM) technology which is an improvement to conventional mastic asphalt which can be placed now from 1mm ultra thin surface to a full 200mm thick load bearing pavement construction without using aggregate stone size larger
than 10mm, the benefits are safer, stronger and more durable asphalt pavements.

There is also a very interesting new solubility phenomenon associated with the GEO320 non-petroleum bitumen technology in that the binder is highly immune to hydrocarbon based solvents, but is sensitive to alcohol based ones. In other words the "solubility sensitivity" has changed away from traditional hydrocarbons to alcohols which is not only an environmental benefit but a great new occupational health and safety OH&S benefit also that comes with this breakthrough technology. Besides the GEO320 MRH non-petroleum bitumen asphalt binder technologies, Ecopave Australia Research was also world first to implement and use warm mix WMA bitumen asphalt technologies made from non-petroleum based renewable resources back in the 1980s.