Snow mass characteristics for the indication of the ice-melting products application load

Abstract

Introduction. For the time present, the active substances of many ice-melting agents used in Moscow are technical sodium and calcium chlorides. By degree of impact of sodium chloride on the human body is characterized as a moderately dangerous substance that belongs to the 3rd hazard class. Residents of megacities who remain unprotected from the possible harmful effects of these substances need the compliance of the ice-melting product’s application with appropriate security measures. Our research focused on the presence of these substances and their accompanying components in the transit environment and determining their actual and extreme loads to prevent possible functional changes in the future traffic chain objects. Material and methods. Chloride (Cl-) and sodium (Na+) content in the snow mass samples taken from the sites adjacent to motorways in Moscow were determined using ion chromatography. Other associated elements in the ice-melting agents were detected using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry method (ICP-MS). Results. According to the snow mass analysis as an object of transit accumulation and distribution of ice-melting reagents, the authors ranked results and identified clusters with different degrees of contamination for many indices. Selecting the group with very high contamination enabled us determine the indices’ levels that limit the use of deicing reagents. When using sodium-chloride reagents, they are the levels of the specific electrical conductivity (SEC) ≥ 4500 µS/cm, the concentration of chloride anions (Cl- ≥ 2500 mg/l), the concentration of sodium ions (Na+) ≥1500 mg/l, the index of total contamination (Zc).