Sprinkle Salt

It is best to be prepared before winter arrives. Sometimes snowfall comes at unexpected times and in large quantities. This makes it a smart move to stock up on de-icing salt in advance! However, on the market, there are a number of different types of deicers (or sprinkle salt)

Icy roads and walkways are dangerous for drivers and pedestrians. So, in cold countries, the government takes it upon itself to clear snow. But snow buildup is dangerous on driveways as well. There are many ways to clear snow from driveways. One way is to use a shovel, like the good old fashioned way. If you don’t want to put in that much effort, you can mount a snow plough on your SUV and scoop off the driveway. But the easiest way to remove snow is to sprinkle de-icing salt on it. This will help you clear the snow in a matter of hours without you lifting up a shovel or a snowplough. Read this article to find out more about them.

A guide to buying de-icing salts

The first thing to understand is that snow is much different in composition than the ice we make using artificial methods. Chemically speaking, de-icing snow is not much different from regular table ice. However, it is not edible because of the presence of other additives. Apart from sodium chloride, it will contain small amounts of chloride salts of calcium, magnesium and potassium. All of these salts fall under the category of chloride deicers. But this is not the only kind of deicers out there. There are also non-chloride deicers, like glycols and formats. However, these devices are not salts per se.

Road de-icing salt

Road salt is just a less pure form of sodium chloride with traces of other elements like potassium chloride, calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride de-icing salt. However, depending on how the salt is obtained, it can be categorised into vacuum salt, sea salt, and rock salt. Among these, sea salt and rock salt are the cheaper options. Vacuum salt, on the other hand, is more expensive and harmful to the environment. For use on driveways, look for safe road salt that does not contain any additives. This type of salt is safer for pets and humans.

Salt brine

Brine is basically a mixture of salt and water. Although the actual concentration varies, on average, the concentration of salt in a brine solution will be around twenty-three per cent. The benefit of brine over salt granules is that brine can work much faster than salt granules. This also makes it helpful when you are trying to melt snow in extreme temperatures like -21 degrees Celsius or below. Because brine is more expensive than salt granules, most people use it in combination with regular salt. In short, brine is a better de-icing agent than regular salt.

Coarse vs Fine salt

If you are buying dicing salt as granules, you will come across two options: fine salt and coarse salt. Here the difference is only in the grain size of the salt. Everything else, the chemical composition and purity, will be the same. However, the grain size can have a significant impact on the way the salt melts the snow. Fine salt can dissolve faster in water and hence melts snow faster. Coarse salt takes longer to melt the snow. But coarse salt is less costly and is less prone to caking up due to moisture.

Problems of vacuum salt

In countries without access to the sea or natural salt formation, the only way to extract salt is to mine it from deep down the earth. In some places, salt rocks will be at a depth of two hundred to 1.5 kilometres. In order to get this salt out of the earth, a method called solution mining is used. The way this works is by drilling a deep hole and pumping water into the salt rocks. The water will dissolve the salt. Then it becomes easier to pump out this water and extract salt from it by evaporation. Although this method has been in use for hundreds of years, it has negative consequences on the environment and animals.