Spreads, stays put, and works down to −7 °C

De-icing Salt

Coarse washed sodium chloride for highway, airfield and municipal winter maintenance. Graded so it lands on the carriageway and stays there — granulometry is specified alongside purity, because salt that blows away or bounces has not worked however pure it is.

  • Manufactured to: EN 16811-1

Overview

Sodium chloride depresses the freezing point of water, and in practice it does that usefully down to about −7 °C. Below that the melt rate collapses and more salt does not help — the answer is pre-wetting with brine, or a calcium or magnesium chloride blend. A supplier who does not tell you where the limit is will sell you salt for conditions it cannot work in.

Granulometry decides whether the spread works. Too fine and it is blown off the carriageway by traffic before it has dissolved; too coarse and it bounces into the verge on impact. The standard 1 – 5 mm road grade is a compromise between the two, and the coarse grade exists for high-speed roads where residence time is the binding constraint.

Stockpiled salt cakes. Moisture is held to ≤ 3% at dispatch and an anti-caking treatment is available for material that will sit through a season, but covered storage on a sealed, drained pad does more for a stockpile than any additive — and it keeps the chloride out of the ground water.

This is deliberately the lowest-purity grade we make, and it should be. Insolubles at 3% are irrelevant on a road surface, and paying food-grade purity for winter maintenance is money spent on a number nobody downstream will ever measure.

Packing options

  • Bulk

    Tipper or open-top container, direct to the depot stockpile

  • Jumbo bag (FIBC)1,000 kg / 1,250 kg

    For depots without covered bulk storage

  • Polypropylene bag25 kg / 50 kg

    Small fleets, footpaths and building entrances

Available gradations

De-icing Salt

  • Size
    Standard road grade1 – 5 mm
    Typical use
    Highways, municipal roads and airfield aprons
  • Size
    Coarse grade2 – 8 mm
    Typical use
    High-speed carriageways and heavy ice, where residence time matters
  • Size
    Fine grade0 – 1 mm
    Typical use
    Brine production for pre-wetting and anti-icing

Other cuts can be produced to specification — send us the effective size and uniformity coefficient you need.

Technical specification

  • Property
    Sodium chloride (NaCl), dry basis
    Typical value
    ≥ 94%
    Test method
    Argentometric titration
  • Property
    Moisture
    Typical value
    ≤ 3%
    Test method
    Oven dry, 105 °C
  • Property
    Water-insoluble matter
    Typical value
    ≤ 3%
    Test method
    Gravimetric
  • Property
    Sulphate (SO₄²⁻)
    Typical value
    ≤ 1.0%
    Test method
  • Property
    Effective working range
    Typical value
    0 °C to −7 °C; pre-wet below −5 °C
    Test method
  • Property
    Typical spread rate
    Typical value
    10 – 40 g/m²
    Test method
  • Property
    Anti-caking treatment
    Typical value
    E535/E536 on request for seasonal stockpiles
    Test method
  • Property
    Loose bulk density
    Typical value
    ≈ 1.2 t/m³
    Test method

Typical values. The certificate issued with your shipment reports the figures measured on that production lot.

Need this grade?

Send the gradation, the volume and the destination port. Our technical team responds within one working day with pricing, lead time and a specimen certificate of analysis.

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