A new coating on a road surfaces could lower its freezing point, preventing ice formation. (Photo by Cristian Pricop)
Drivers are testing out a new road coating that could reduce accidents in the winter. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports, it might also mean fewer trips for highway salt trucks:
Transcript
Drivers are testing out a new road coating that could reduce accidents in the winter. And as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports it might also mean fewer trips for highway salt trucks:
Russ Alger directs the Institute of Snow Research at Michigan Technological University. He’s come up with an aggregate that can absorb road salt. The aggregate is glued to the road surface with a tough epoxy. Alger says the aggregate can hold onto road salt for an entire season. That means when it gets cold, the salt will prevent ice from forming.
“And so in essence what we’ve done is we’ve lowered the freezing point of the pavement itself, and what that means is, twenty degrees pavement temperature now, ice won’t form at the surface of it.”
It also means road crews can use less salt, and make fewer trips to trouble spots. The new coating was installed on a bridge in Northern Wisconsin. Alger says accidents there have been reduced dramatically. It’s also being tried out on some runways at Chicago’s O’Hare airport.
For the GLRC, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.