A simplex-centroid designed eco-friendly acetate-based deicer: development, environmental assessment, and evaluation of its anti-icing performance

Road icing in winter very easily poses a threat to driving safety. The application of road snow melting agent can improve this problem, but current road snow melting agents pose a threat to the environment and road infrastructure. The purpose of this study is to prepare a low-carbon, environmentally friendly road snow melting agent and explore its performance. In this study, low-carbon salts were selected as raw materials, and the components of low-carbon environmentally friendly snow melting agents were optimized by simplex center-of-gravity design. Then, the indoor and outdoor ice-melting performance and environmental protection performance of low-carbon environmentally friendly road snow melting agent were studied. Finally, the low-carbon environmentally friendly snow melting agent was incorporated into the asphalt mixture to prepare a low-carbon, environmentally friendly anti-icing asphalt mixture, and its anti-icing performance was evaluated. The results showed that a large concentration of low-carbon environmentally friendly road snow melting agent had an inhibitory effect on the corrosion of carbon steel, and the effect of such an agent on plant seeds was smaller than that of traditional chlorine salt road snow melting agent. The low-carbon, environmentally friendly anti-condensation ice asphalt mixture showed good anti-condensation ice performance; in particular, the anti-condensation ice asphalt mixture prepared by external mixing method shows more obvious anti-condensation ice performance. The optimum ratio of low-carbon, environmentally friendly road snow melting agent is 23.9% potassium acetate, 27.4% sodium acetate, and 48.7% ammonium acetate.