LowEmissionAsphalt-136pg-WhitePaper-May2023

P a g e | 109 Figure 68 – Decarbonating Road Surface Source: Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) Natural Emissions Mineralization & Biological Storage – recall that plants insatiably consume both carbon and nitrogen as critical drivers of photosynthesis. Nitrogen is the primary constituent of chlorophyll, where chlorophyll is a green pigment that enables plants to absorb sunlight. The sunlight then breaks down assimilated carbon into glucose to promote plant growth. What’s important is the resultant of photosynthesis in establishing PCO as permanent CO 2 and NO 2 sequestration by perennial vegetation. The only external result of photosynthesis in plants is oxygen. As plants age, the nitrogen rich chlorophyll naturally decomposes into needed amino acids, which are metabolized. 232 Perennials hence exhaust nitrogen and sequester carbon for decades and even centuries. So, vehicle exhaust CO 2 is first photochemically mineralized; assimilated by vegetation; becomes sugar and the photochemically mineralized NO 2 becomes protein under PCO. 232 catabolism is a degradative metabolism involving the breakdown of complex materials such as chlorophyll into proteins including amino acids.