Good ice melt choices for concrete are calcium chloride and magnesium chloride.
Magnesium chloride safe for concrete.
Magnesium chloride is works well in temperatures as low as 5 f and is safe for concrete.
Magnesium chloride as a road deicer.
A critical review magnesium chloride as a road deicer.
Salts that some people use for melting ice include sodium chloride potassium chloride calcium chloride and magnesium chloride in them.
Magnesium chloride is more detrimental to concrete.
However magnesium chloride is slower and is not as effective in colder weather.
Learn if rock salt or ice melt combinations are best for your home and if those products are safe on your concrete driveways and walkways.
While potassium chloride is good for the environment it damages the concrete and typically costs 3 5 times more.
Studies have found that ice melt formulas that combine solar salt and anti corrosion agents are less damaging to concrete and vegetation when compared to magnesium chloride and calcium chloride based ice melters.
Sealing your concrete can retard or delay the concrete deterioration and minimize the ugly pock marks on the concrete.
The only real benefit to using magnesium chloride over calcium chloride is that magnesium chloride is safer for vegetation.
Why take the risk.
The use of magnesium chloride also sometimes referred to as mag as an ice melter to melt the ice on concrete sidewalks driveways or roads can be deadly.
Snow removal 101 shines light on confusing subjects such as magnesium chloride ice melting products to basic questions such as why salt melts ice.
Since you are handling damp salt the concrete may in effect contact a solution saturated with sodium chloride and containing magnesium chloride in some lower concentration.
Aci 201 2r 77 in a table showing the effect of commonly used chemicals on concrete lists magnesium chloride solutions as having a slow rate of attack on concrete at.
This method which was designed to screen deicers quickly does not correlate to the real world because it uses substandard non air entrained concrete and only 15 freeze thaw cycles.
Mgcl2 suppliers claim less spalling than other deicers based on a test developed by shrp.
Due to the significant amount of scientific information on the concrete damaging effects of magnesium chloride and calcium chloride.