6. General information on hydrocarbon materials

In the early 20th century, the fight against road dust led to the first applications of the "tarring" technique in road construction. Thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of Swiss doctor Ernest Guglielminetti, founder of the "league against road dust", tarring developed rapidly, with bitumen emulsion, invented in 1922, gradually replacing tar from the early 1920s onwards.

Initially used on pavement surfaces, first in the form of surface dressings (a modern form of tarring), then as asphalt mixes, hydrocarbon binders very quickly penetrated the pavement body in the form of macadam penetration products, then much later in the form of bitumen gravel and emulsion gravel, until they became one of the essential constituents of flexible, semi-rigid and composite pavements, as defined in article