Application of Physicochemical Analysis to Developing and Studying Deicing Agents

Abstract

Physicochemical analysis was shown to be efficient for developing and studying deicing agents. A methodology to design new deicing agents was described, which includes a criterion to choose salts, a method to investigate phase equilibria in water–salt systems (visual polythermal analysis), and determination of the deicing properties of salts and salt mixtures (eutectic temperature and ice-melting ability). A criterion to quantify the efficiency of deicing agents was proposed, which is the ice-melting ability of an agent at various temperatures. Data on phase equilibria in binary and ternary water–salt systems at temperatures below 0°C were presented, and so were data on the new developed deicing agents, including the compositions of the agents, the parameters of the eutectics formed with ice (temperature and concentration of solution), and the ice-melting ability of agents at temperatures of –5, –10, and –20°C.