2006-11-30 22:14:53 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Earth Sciences & Geology
This is one of the biggest misconceptions about salt. Salt DOES NOT make ice melt faster. It makes ice melt at a lower temperature. The more salt, the lower the melting temperature. The reason that they use salt on roads is so that there will be more temperatures at which the ice is melted. For example, regular ice melts at 0 degrees C. By adding salt, you can drop that temperature to as low as -21 degrees C. So if it were -10 degrees C outside, salted ice would be melted but regular ice wouldn’t. Below -21 degrees C, the salt would not make any difference. This has nothing to do with how quickly the ice melts - just what temperatures it will melt at.
The cool thing about this is that this is nothing special about salt. Pretty much anything that dissolves in water will drop the melting point. For instance, you could use sugar or even alcohol. Salt is just used on roads because it’s inexpensive.
2006-11-30 22:24:09 · answer #1 · answered by Kitia_98 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Salt reduces the melting point of ice to -17 *C
2006-12-01 06:23:29 · answer #2 · answered by hasnain_ali_khan 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Salt lowers the melting point of ice.
2006-12-01 07:46:56 · answer #3 · answered by bldudas 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Salt water freezes at about 26 deg. F. so if it is colder than that salt will not help.
2006-12-01 15:46:52 · answer #4 · answered by JOHNNIE B 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
...why would it? Unless the salt is really hot.
2006-12-01 06:21:59 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋