Magnesium Chloride Ice Melt: Some Useful Knowhow
Melting the hard ice with ice melting compounds has become a common practice today. Using Magnesium chloride ice melt is one of the most useful methods for melting the snow from entries, drives, walks and virtually from anywhere blocking the public route.
Ice melters act quickly and are also cost effective. Hence, they are used throughout the world. With the increase in demand for ice melters, suppliers have also increased. You will be able to obtain ice melters from at least 100 brands today. However, one should check the products and see whether the components are mentioned on the product.
Magnesium chloride is considered to be the most effective products in ice melting. Magnesium chloride ice melt has a number of benefits. The agent, if comes in contact with the skin is less irritating in comparison to other salts. It is safe to use this product in areas close to vegetation. The compound also acts less corrosive on metal surfaces thus causing less damage to the surfaces.
It is safe to use the product on concrete surfaces. It is environment friendly and hence is less problematic for humans and animals. It tracks less than other agents and so is safe. The magnesium brine is a powerful road salt prewetting medium. This protects the concrete surfaces from spalling and is less toxic.
However, one of the major disadvantages of using this compound is that most of the times it is not fully active. Only 48% of its quality is used as a melter. This means, that you have to apply high amounts of magnesium chloride ice melt to achieve the purpose. It normally brings the temperature down to 5 degrees.
Magnesium chloride ice melt can be obtained in flake forms which appear flat, large and clear. The flakes are ivory white and contain more than 51% water for hydration. The speed with which it works is excellent. It starts almost as quickly as calcium chloride. However, it soon becomes ineffective because it turns dilute. Hence, greater amount is required.
It is less corrosive on concrete because the attack takes place at a slow pace. However, it can cause damage on a different level by increasing the number of thaw cycles and increasing the pressure on the concrete surface. This compound consists of 17-56% more chloride ions in each molecule in comparison to other agents.
A big advantage of using this compound is that it does not leave any powdery residue. Hence post melting clean-up is easy. Do read the application procedure before you begin application of magnesium chloride ice melt. Normally it is applied measuring 2 lb for each square yard. When the surface appears dry, you will have to apply again half of that previous amount on the surface. However, you should know about the surface on which you will apply this compound. You must also have some knowledge about the temperature and the thickness of snow before applying the compound. Nevertheless, magnesium chloride ice melt is better than many other melting agents in the market. FreezGard and Mag by Dead Sea Works are some of the products in this category.
