Performance Comparison of Different Highway Snow-Melting Agents

Snow- and ice-covered pavements threaten highway traffic safety in the winter. The use of snow-melting agents is one of the most significant means to rapidly remove ice and snow on road. According to the main ingredients, the highway snow-melting agents are classified into three types: chloride salts, non-chloride salts, and environment-friendly ones. Comparisons on the melting snow and ice performances are conducted on the aspects of their melting ice and snow performance, the corrosion to the concrete and metal materials, the effects of poa pratensis seed germination percentage of different snow-melting agents to evaluate different agents' performances synthetically. The test results show the differences among the different snow-melting agents on the aspects of technology, environment and cost. The applicability of the different snow-melting agents is summarized. Finally, the technological references are proposed to guide using snow-melting agents efficiently, safely and in an environmentally-friendly way.