As we all know, micro-surfacing and slurry seal are both common preventive maintenance technologies, and the manual methods are similar, so many people don’t know how to distinguish them in actual use. Therefore, the editor of Sinosun Company would like to take this opportunity to tell you the difference between the two.
1. Different applicable road surfaces: Micro-surfacing is mainly used for preventive maintenance and filling of light rutting on highways, and is also suitable for anti-skid wear layers of newly built highways. Slurry seal is mainly used for preventive maintenance of secondary and lower highways, and can also be used in the lower seal layer of newly built highways.

2. Different aggregate quality: The wear loss of aggregates used for micro-surfacing must be less than 30%, which is more stringent than the requirement of no more than 35% for aggregates used for slurry seal; the sand equivalent of synthetic mineral aggregates used for micro-surfacing through a 4.75mm sieve must be higher than 65%, and significantly higher than the requirement of 45% for slurry seal.
3. Different technical requirements: Slurry seal uses unmodified emulsified asphalt of different types, while micro-surfacing uses modified fast-setting emulsified asphalt, and the residue content must be higher than 62%, which is higher than the requirement of 60% for emulsified asphalt used in slurry seal.
4. The design indicators of the mixtures of the two are different: the mixture of micro-surfacing must meet the wet wheel wear index of 6 days of immersion in water, while the slurry seal does not need it; the micro-surfacing can be used for rutting filling, and its mixture requires that the lateral displacement of the sample is less than 5% after 1,000 times of rolling by the loaded wheel, while the slurry seal does not.
It can be seen that although micro-surfacing and slurry seal are similar in some places, they are actually very different. When using them, you must choose according to the actual situation.