Chemical Properties Of Road Salt
Road salt has a variety of unique chemical properties which allow it to be used by industries and civic organizations alike. The most important chemical property of road salt, for the transit safety industry, is the decreased freezing point of water which results from saturation.
A Unique Advantage
Although a variety of minerals and chemicals will cause a decreased freezing point in water, salt accomplishes this useful change with a minimum cost, since salt is such a widely available resource. Most salt is acquired either through the evaporation of sea water, or by directly mining the salt from underground. One advantage for mining salt, is the production and sale of the "rock salt" form of sodium chloride. This form is likely to blow off of roads and harm areas of vegetation, which is an important advantage over finer grains.
An Ingredient To Life, And The Economy
Additional chemical properties of road salt, and salt in general, are its ready solution in water. Although a well known property, solubility is perhaps the most important. This contributes to its use in a variety of industries, which require chemicals to be separated in an inexpensive and inexhaustible way. Such chemical separation is largely used by the soap and detergent industries, in order to ensure a pure product, which is produced at a fraction of the cost of many more expensive chemical compounds, some of which share the chemical properties of road salt. In fact, some chemicals and minerals surpass salt in efficiency, but at a multiplied cost.
In developed nations, most salt is used for ice control. However, the production of manufacturing ingredients accounts for more than a third of total rock salt consumption. Of course, the production of chemicals accounts for industries which require road salt for chemical separation of any kind or combination with other products. For example, the oil industry requires large amounts of road salt to ensure the stability of oil wells. Similar to its use in transit safety, oil companies use hundreds of tons of road salt mixed with the moist soil that surrounds oil wells. Salty mud, which has been exposed to road salt is more stable and easy to control, allowing for a less expensive production of oil and other materials which require oil, including the entire plastics industry.
Lastly, industrial salt is required for retail use, sold over-the-counter at grocery stores for culinary or general household purposes. These uses for industrial salt as retail products account for less than 10% of the total use of industrial salt in developed nations. While these uses are most readily associated with consumer activities, the "invisible uses" of industrial salt, create the largest economic impact for developing and developed nations alike.
