Hazardous alkylphenol wastes (HAPW) are a class of organic semisolid waste characterized by large production, complex composition and difficulties associated with recycling. Their generation and disposal lead to significantly environmental issues, including water and soil pollution, and present a substantial industrial challenge. To address these issues, a sustainable, low-carbon strategy for the high-value utilization of HAPW has been proposed. We take HAPW as a compatibilizer in the production of epoxy asphalt for road construction materials. Experimental results show that the HAPW-based epoxy asphalt containing 19.5 wt% HAPW exhibited optimal mechanical properties (tensile strength: 4.16 MPa; elongation at break: 164.92 %), exceeding industrial standards and outperforming epoxy asphalt produced using commercial cardanol through conventional processes. With a detailed molecular dynamics simulation, it is found that the HAPW plays two key roles in enhancing the interactions between epoxy resins and asphalt: (i) HAPW generates numerous hydrogen bonds with both asphalt and epoxy resin phases, strengthening noncovalent interactions and improving interfacial miscibility between the two phases. (ii) HAPW could react with the epoxy resin through the phenolic hydroxyl group, which further improves the interactions between epoxy resin and asphalt. This approach facilitates the treatment of hazardous organic waste in an environmentally sustainable and low-carbon way, enabling the recovery and repurposing of organic waste into high-valued products. Consequently, it promotes the resource utilization of industrial wastes while simultaneously contributing to a reduction in carbon emissions.

Naphthalene is a fungicide that can also be a phase-change agent owing to its high crystallization enthalpy at about 80 degrees C. The relatively rapid evaporation of naphthalene as a fungicide and its shape instability after melting are problems solved in this work by its placement into a cured epoxy matrix. The work's research materials included diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A as an epoxy resin, 4,4 '-diaminodiphenyl sulfone as its hardener, and naphthalene as a phase-change agent or a fungicide. Their miscibility was investigated by laser interferometry, the rheological properties of their blends before and during the curing by rotational rheometry, the thermophysical features of the curing process and the resulting phase-change materials by differential scanning calorimetry, and the blends' morphologies by transmission optical and scanning electron microscopies. Naphthalene and epoxy resin were miscible when heated above 80 degrees C. This fact allowed obtaining highly concentrated mixtures containing up to 60% naphthalene by high-temperature homogeneous curing with 4,4 '-diaminodiphenyl sulfone. The initial solubility of naphthalene was only 19% in uncured epoxy resin but increased strongly upon heating, reducing the viscosity of the reaction mixture, delaying its gelation, and slowing cross-linking. At 20-40% mass fraction of naphthalene, it almost entirely retained its dissolved state after cross-linking as a metastable solution, causing plasticization of the cured epoxy polymer and lowering its glass transition temperature. At 60% naphthalene, about half dissolved within the cured polymer, while the other half formed coarse particles capable of crystallization and thermal energy storage. In summary, the resulting phase-change material stored 42.6 J/g of thermal energy within 62-90 degrees C and had a glass transition temperature of 46.4 degrees C at a maximum naphthalene mass fraction of 60% within the epoxy matrix.