|
We get a lot of calls asking about what
deicer to use. What are the best products to melt the ice and
snow on city streets, parking garages, hospital entry-ways,
sidewalks, and driveways? What about the daycare center where
children crawl and they pick up deicers on their hands and then
potentially taste them? How about the canine kennel where pets
are exposed? Frequently that question comes in the broad form;
“What’s your best ice-melter?” Our answer is always the same:
It depends on your situation.
There are hundreds of brands and types of
products that can melt snow and ice, but there is only one thing
consumers and users need to know about them: the chemical
ingredients. While it appears that these hundreds of products
are all different, actually there are very few – a handful at
most – that comprise the lion’s share of all deicers on the
market today. They are differentiated by their performance, the
chemistry, and their respective costs. While the myriad of
options can be confusing, understanding the differences in
product ingredients and how they work can make choosing the
right product much easier.
The basic factors to consider should
really be done from the ground up. What is the surface you are
treating made of and where will the runoff go? If you have a
wooden deck for example, did you know that using any chloride
based product can create two potential hazards? First the
chloride component will attack the fastening system used to hold
the deck together as it becomes diluted and saturates the deck,
and secondly the brine may tend to attract moisture in the
capillary pores of the wood allowing it to re-freeze as black
ice. Ever notice how frost seems to stay on a wooden deck? So
the surfaces you treat are the first thing you must consider
when choosing the right deicer.The
next area of consideration is what we call source point
collateral impact. How will areas beyond where the deicer is
used be affected? Where will the runoff containing deicer go, or
where will deicers be carried by vehicular and foot traffic? Are
there any downstream environmental issues of which you need to
mindful such as waterways, wetlands, or aquifers? For example,
we frequently see “no salt zone” signs posted on highways
adjacent to reservoirs. This is because surface and shallow well
potable (drinking) water supplies are protected from elevated
sodium levels from salt run-off to minimize the dangers of
elevated sodium levels to users within the distribution system
who have hypertension. Because the nature of deicing is inexact,
over-application is the standard in most cases and that leads to
collateral impact as the “extra” deicer is tracked off-site,
runs off-site, or seeps into the environment. How that secondary
aspect affects your situation is something that should be
strongly considered.
The third and final area of consideration is
a little higher up from the snow; it’s your wallet. What is the
cost per pound?
We constantly preach to our customers and
distributor partners that snow and ice control is a balancing
act. You are balancing performance, which is generally defined
as a black and wet surface, against adverse consequences, which
encompasses everything from cost, to the right chemistry for
your environment, collateral impact, and toxicity. A powerful
deicer might do a great job of keeping a walkway open but it
also might kill all the fish in the goldfish pond, help to
destroy the concrete, and be tracked in the building and ruin
the rugs.
As we’ve said, there are basically five
common deicers that comprise 95% of the market; sodium chloride,
magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride, and
acetates. Let’s address them in increasing order of cost with
the lowest cost first:
- Sodium Chloride (NaCl): Also called rock salt this is
one of the most abundant chemical compounds found on the earth.
It is harvested by a variety of methods from mining both by open
mines and underground mines; it is evaporated from brines that
are flooded into pans from natural sources on the surface such
as the sea; and, it is solution mined where we pump it from
underground salt domes as a concentrated brine. As a deicer,
sodium chloride is number one by a landslide because it is
cheap, readily available, and found the whole world over. It
will melt snow and ice effectively at temperatures down to +16
degrees, but performs best in the mid-20s. Sodium chloride
contains 67% chlorides and about 30% sodium so consider that
these two ingredients will end up causing 90% of the benefit and
100% of the problems.
- Magnesium Chloride (MgCl2): A premium or high
performance deicer because of its effectiveness, it is a
naturally occurring chloride compound like sodium chloride,.
Magnesium chloride is found throughout the world in surface and
underground mineral reserves. Magnesium chloride is more
expensive than sodium chloride but less than calcium and
potassium chlorides. In the US, the Great Salt Lake is a major
source of magnesium chloride along with similar places in the
world like the Dead Sea. It is also solution mined from vast
reserves under Northern Europe, China, and in the US as well
(pun intended). In the commercial deicer form as a dry
hexahydrate, magnesium chloride contains 34% chlorides and 18%
Magnesium. It’s gentle on most surfaces and vegetation as well
as pet safe and has gained wide popularity in the last few
decades because it doesn’t track and its low environmental
impact. It’s very low toxicity is comparable to Vitamin C. Found
in pellet, flake, and liquid solutions from 25-35%, magnesium
chloride as exploded in use and demand in the world over the
past two decades because of it balances high performance with
low environmental impact. It will melt snow and ice effectively
down to -13F.
- Calcium Chloride (CaCl2): Another naturally occurring
chloride like sodium and magnesium, calcium chloride is
predominately found only in underground brines where it is
brought the to the surface, refined and dried. Calcium chloride
is more expensive than both sodium and magnesium chlorides.
Calcium chloride is far and away the most recognized premium
deicer because it has been widely used in the US for over 100
years. Tried and true this powerful premium deicer comes in
pellet, flake, and liquid forms. Like salt, calcium can be messy
when it is tracked in and its toxicity is the highest of all
chloride based deicers. Long established and far and away the
lowest temperature deicer, it will melt ice to -25F. It tends to
be a little harder on surfaces but it does a great job, Most
premium deicers compare their performance to calcium chloride
because it is so well recognized.
- Potassium Chloride (KCl): A naturally occurring
chloride like the others mentioned above, potassium chloride is
actually used very little as a deicer at this time. It is the
principle ingredient in fertilizers as a source of potassium. If
you buy potassium chloride at a fertilizer dealer or farm
supply, you would order it by it’s fertilizer designation of
macro-nutrients: 0-0-60 (Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium). It is
60% potassium and only 37% chlorides so while it’s very easy on
the environment it is also fairly ineffective as a deicer
because it doesn’t melt below +25F. People tend to like it
because of the fact that its so environmentally friendly but in
recent years the cost of fertilizers coupled with insanely
rising prices in fertilizers have driven potassium chloride
quickly from the #2 spot to the #4 spot on the ascending cost
scale. It has risen in price more than 10 fold from $80 in just
the last three years so this year (2008/2009) we are seeing
virtually no potassium chloride in deicers other than background
levels which occur naturally. At over $1000/ton in bulk
currently potassium chloride has exited the market as a deicer
in most places and has been replaced by magnesium chloride which
is it’s first cousin.
- Acetates: Commonly found in three forms; sodium
acetate, calcium magnesium acetate, and potassium acetate,
acetate deciers are not chloride based and take an entirely
different approach to the task of deicing and the market. They
protect surfaces and structures from chloride damage because
they don’t contain any chlorides. They are organic chemical
compounds that break down naturally in the environment and leave
little adverse impact. Those benefits come at a steep price
because the main ingredients used to make acetate deicers
(acetic acid, dolomitic limes, and potassium chloride) are very
expensive and in short supply in the US at this time driving
prices up. Available in dry and liquid forms, acetates are
commonly used in structural concrete, parking garages, and
airports where chlorides are banned due to the corrosion
potential to aircraft systems.
- Others: Other deicer options cover a lot of products
but represent a very small segment of the market: Urea, ammonium
sulfate, glycols, and formates are the most common ones but
again these are in pretty small numbers because of their costs
or performance relative to the “big five”.
In recent years, we’ve seen an explosion
of boutique ice-melters that take low cost rock salt and mix
small quantities of premium deicers in with them and then wrap
them in a very fancy package. These blends are often 90 percent
or more rock salt with a small percentage of a premium
ingredient, such as CMA, MAG, or calcium chloride. Ingredients
in those proportions make them about as effective as rock salt
and they have the same characteristics. Frequently they are
priced equal to premium deicers and are in very attractive
packages. We use a general rule of thumb: the fancier the bag
and label, the more rock salt there is in the product. Most if
not all of these products do not disclose their ingredients and
therein lies a multitude of problems. First, Federal and State
Right to Know Laws require manufacturers to disclose their
formula and ingredients in descending order of concentration.
Most of these boutique deicers are very clever and take great
steps to hide what they are really trying to sell. Companies are
taking a $2 bag of rock salt and put it in a bag with very
expensive graphics like puppies, babies, and evergreen trees on
high quality color package, and then call it “green this” or
“enviro that”. They are selling for 4-5 times their actual cost!
Many of these packages are outright consumer fraud and no one at
the government level seems to be interested in bringing truth in
labeling to the ice melt market. It’s a virtual free-for-all as
companies are producing fancy bags of salt with dye in it and
selling it for 80-90% profit! We are frankly disgusted with some
of the sleazy marketing that is being used.
How do you avoid being burned by the “pig in
lipstick”? You demand a certified analysis of ingredients in
your deicer from your supplier. We provide these documents
routinely on any and all products which we sell. We have nothing
to hide and our belief is that if we educate our customers they
will make the right decision which will benefit us. It’s part of
the deal when you work with MeltSnow.com. We are not playing
this game and we are trying to lead the charge against the lies
in labels and encourage all of you to do the same. Demand to be
given a written statement on the manufacturer’s letterhead of
what they are selling to you. If their product is coated with
peanut oil, they have a responsibility to tell you that in case
someone walking over your deicer has a peanut allergy. If they
are selling you rock salt dyed green, do you really think the
green dye and lovely evergreen trees on the bag are worth the $7
per bag premium? PT Barnum step right up, we found one for you!
This is ice melt. We are not shooting rockets off to the moon
and there are no secrets. We sometimes hear people say “it’s a
patented secret formula”. Say what? If it’s patented, then you
are protected under the patent and the formula is listed for
public viewing at the patent office. It’s a public document so
why is it secret? It’s because they don’t want for you to
realize that you are paying $8/bag for $2/bag rock salt with
dye. The secret is you’re getting taking to the cleaners – not
that you are getting the latest in chemical deicer technology.
We don’t want to sound like we are down on
blended deicers – we’re not. Most them work pretty well and
frequently the right combinations of these products in the right
amounts can form synergies that are very effective. If we add
8-10 gallons of liquid magnesium chloride or liquid calcium
chloride to a ton rock salt and we can lower the working
temperature another 10 degrees and use 30% less to do the same
job. In practical terms, we are increasing the cost of that
compound from $100/ton (just the salt) to $108-$110/ton. So we
increased the cost of a 50 lb. bag by only $0.25, not by $7.00!
($10.00/2000 lbs x 50 lbs)
Most of us can easily tell what we are
getting by simply making a visual examination of the product.
Does it look like its’ all white pellets or is it a granular
material that looks like it’s mostly salt? As the old expression
goes, if it walks on four legs, barks, wags it’s tail and looks
like a dog – it’s probably a dog.
Fortunately while to many people it
appears that the market is flooded with lots of different
products, if you spend a little time with your supplier asking
the obvious questions of “what am I buying here” you can quickly
separate the choices and find the right one for your needs. If
you are still confused, log onto www.meltsnow.com or call
508.520.3900.Above all, ask questions
of your supplier about what they are selling to you and demand a
certified chemical breakdown of the product. This isn’t rocket
science so don’t let anyone work a slight of hand that makes you
think that it is.
<<
Back to Articles of Interest
Privacy Policy
Legal Notice
Terms and Conditions
 |
