By now you have likely heard or read about the growing use of liquid anti-icers in the winter maintenance of roads and facilities. From highways to sidewalks, what it ultimately comes down to is this: If you haven’t incorporated anti-icing practices into your winter program, you are losing money.

In order to address liquids and anti-icing in general, let’s first start with some ice melter basics. As confusing as it may sound, the purpose of an ice melter is not to melt ice. The purpose of an ice melter is to break the bond between the ice and your pavement surface so that it can be easily removed by mechanical means such as a shovel or plow.

There are two very key elements in that statement. First, the purpose is not to melt ice. This means that when using an ice melting product, you should not keep piling it on in an attempt to simply vaporize the ice and snow. This results in a costly waste of product, damage to surrounding vegetation and contamination to water run off areas.

The second key is to remove the slush after your product has broken the surface bond. If the slush is not removed it will either refreeze, resulting in a slip and fall accident, or your crew will just reapply, melting the ice back to slush again. The increased freeze thaw cycles that result from not removing the slush, can have a damaging impact on your concrete, in addition to the effects resulting from over application.

Where liquids and the practice of anti-icing have their biggest impact is in their ability to prevent ice from bonding with your pavement altogether. Applied ahead of a winter storm event, liquids coat your paved surface much like butter on a frying pan.

The liquid mixture, often a blend of salt brine and other de-icers, acts as a barrier to that bond as your snow accumulates on your pavement. Some melting action will occur on contact, however liquids are not designed as a snow repellant.

The purpose of an anti-icer is to prevent bonding. What this means to an operator is that when the storm is over and they go to remove the snow from their sidewalk, they will find a smooth clean surface underneath, rather than the layer of bonded snow and ice they are accustomed to. Much like shoveling wet snow, this clean surface does not need the costly repeated application of dry de-icers that would otherwise result.

From a green vantage point, you are significantly reducing your chloride use in order to maintain the same area. This is a much more environmentally beneficial position than buying any bag of ice melt that says “green” on it and using it the same way you’ve always applied your de-icers.

State departments of transportation in the U.S. that have driven much of the experimentation and implementation of liquids have reported that every pound of salt applied in liquid form ahead of a winter storm saves them roughly 4 pounds of salt that would be applied after the storm. These cost savings can also be calculated that every gallon of liquid anti-icer can save 9 pounds of dry product.

The liquids themselves are for the most part fairly simple. The vast majority of them are salt brine based. Some formulas are blended with liquid versions of other well known de-icers, such as calcium chloride, magnesium chloride or potassium acetate, and more and more are also blending in a bio-based additive.

Like all ice melters, these blends vary in performance, price and intended application. Do the work to investigate which products are right for you and your application. The fact of the matter is, if you are putting down something you are ahead of the game.

If you’ve heard any of the press about people using “beet juice” on the roads, you have likely been hearing about a salt brine liquid, blended with a bio-based additive derived from sugar beets. There are a variety of these additives on the market produced from any number of sources and their primary role in the liquid mixture is extending the life of the product once it’s on the ground.

They are often referred to under a wide range of terms from simply “beet juice,” to organics, bio-based liquids, sugars or carbohydrates. Some of these actually improve the performance of the liquid de-icing chemicals while others are there to extend the application effectiveness of the product.

If you were to spray straight salt brine on your sidewalk, it would work just fine as an anti-icer and is indeed used exactly like that in a lot of applications. Your primary concerns with a straight salt brine blend will be reducing the mist created by spraying so that it stays on your sidewalk and not your vegetation or corrosive surfaces.

Your second drawback is that the water in the solution is subject to evaporation and can leave you with a chalky dust that blows away. If, for example, the local meteorologist was wrong in their prediction and your storm does not arrive on the day expected, it is entirely possible that your salt brine has simply blown away.

The advantage of a product incorporating a bio-based additive is they prevent the product from drying out and dusting. With residual effect sometimes up to a week, these products are much more effective in extending the life of your liquids and freeing your crew up to apply product when it works in their schedule rather than trying to stay just an hour or two ahead of a storm. If the local weather is off by a day or two, your product is still active and ready for snow.

Although there are a wide range of learning curves associated with incorporating liquids into an anti-icing program, the sooner your facility begins, the better positioned you will be with your budget, your green initiatives and your leadership position. ❑

For more on ice melting, contact Mike Ossian at Ossian, Inc., 563-324-3381 or mike@ossian.com.