Recipe for clean roads: sugar and salt
City street crews will use a new ingredient to fight snow and ice this winter -- beet juice.
Odd as it may sound, road crews around the Midwest and elsewhere increasingly are mixing beet juice with salt to fight the winter elements.
The magic of Geomelt -- Adding beet juice to salt helps keep ice off of roads because the sugar reduces the temperature water freezes at. The product:
• Reduces salt use up to 30 percent
• Is effective to 30 degrees below zero when mixed with salt
Source: www.snisolutions.com
About 1,800 tons of rock salt were treated with the stuff in Joliet this week.
The beet juice is in a product called Geomelt, which has been used in Bolingbrook, DuPage County and by the Illinois Department of Transportation in recent years.
"Everyone we talk to has been very satisfied with it," said Jim Trizna, public works director for Joliet.
Salt mixed with Geomelt should be less corrosive on streets, cars and trees.
Plus, it makes the salt go further, meaning cash-strapped cities like Joliet use less salt. The city spent nearly $1 million on road salt last winter.
"The sugar beet acts as what is called a freeze-point depressor," Freeman said.
The sugar molecules get between water molecules that otherwise would bond into snow and ice. The beet-treated salt thus remains effective as temperatures drop below zero -- times when road ice otherwise won't melt.
The city has used calcium chloride to increase the effectiveness of salt during extreme low temperatures.
Geomelt probably will be used this winter in most but not all salt spread on Joliet roads, said Mike Eulitz, the city's roadways engineer.
He said about 5,000 tons of salt will be treated with the beet juice. About 7,400 tons of salt were used in Joliet last winter.
No, said Eulitz. The beet-treated salt actually is brownish. So, people will notice streets treated with Geomelt.
"Instead of a white film on the road," Eulitz said, "it will be brown."
