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December
4, 2004
New de-icing road mixture:
Magic Salt
News Brief: The Union Leader
Published on December 4, 2004
KEENE (AP) — The city Department
of Public Works is trying a new technique to make roads
safer this winter, using a solution that looks like
coffee and smells like molasses: "Magic Salt."
The special concoction is designed to
melt ice and snow faster and at lower temperatures than
road salt, last longer on the road and be less corrosive.
It's also biodegradable.
It's also less expensive. Salt costs $40
a ton, said Bruce Tatro, Keene highway superintendent,
and Keene uses about 5,000 tons per winter.
"Magic Salt" costs more, about
$62 a ton, but the city will probably only use about
2,200 tons, about $64,000 less.
The experiment is a first for Keene and
for the spraying company, N.H. Ice Melt of Manchester.
Tatro said Keene's road crews have already
used the "magic salt" twice. "It really
worked," he said.
Scott Convery of N.H. Ice Melt said it's "like
spraying Pam on a frying pan," like a no-stick
spray for streets. So when plows clear off roads where
the mixture has been used, there shouldn't be any hard-packed
snow or black ice left over.
On Thursday, about 125 tons of regular
road salt in the public works shed in Keene was hosed
with a concoction called "Magic-0," a brown
liquid that is half magnesium chloride and half throwaway
products from, for example, a vodka manufacturing plant.
Magic-0 is sprayed onto regular salt heaps
from a hose attached to a 220-gallon tank. The spray
neutralizes the salts corrosiveness, and the mixture
becomes like a brine.
Then it gets worked over until it's a
cinnamon-brown color. Within 10 minutes, its ready to
melt ice and snow in temperatures as low as 35 degrees
below zero. That's at least 50 degrees colder than the
temperature at which salt stops working.
Tatro said city crews usually would spread
800 pounds of regular salt on the roads in 25-degree
weather. More salt must be spread when it gets down
to 15 degrees. Beyond that, crews have to spread sand
to keep the streets passable.
The magic salt "saves crews from
being out at 2 a.m.," Tatro said. "When its
done ahead of time, we're not trying to play catch-up." |
