What kind of salt works best for warm 50 degree weather?

S

skientrepreneur

Member
I thought I saw them using bags of Ammonium Nitrate at the summer camps, but I don't know where I would get that fertilizer. What else works the best? I need it for skiing this weekend in the midwest!
 
If it's warm enough you can use plain old rock salt. Go down to the hardware store, or I've even seen some at Walmart and they can sell you a 40lb bag for around 5 bucks (it's usually used for water purification.) Use it if the sun is out, the snow is melting, or the best if it's raining you will have a skating rink in about 10 minutes. Don't use it if it's snowing at all, or if it gets cloudy and cool, this will only give you a pile of unusable mush that no one will like. I love answering questions about salt it's so much fun, keep them coming.

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I guess Ammonium Nitrate is the best, but the head of the park staff at my mountian said they cant get it anymore because of 9/11 they think they are using it to make bombs or something
 
haha...you cant exactly go down to the hardware store and buy a 40 lb. bag of solid francium.
 
I always use nitrate in the summer. It's the best when it's warm. And reguler de-icing salt is good during the winter.
 
Well then you shoulda said calcium chloride =P because you can't just "assume" people will put a chloride after it, chem doesn't work that way lol
 
my chem teacher wasnt very smart...and somehow got ahold of a VERY small amount of potassium...and took it out of the water...he almost lost his hand
 
To Clarify, Pure Sodium will not explode when it hits water. Pure potassium will not explode when it hits water, it fizzes a bit and shoots all over(staying in the water) but no explosion, sometimes flames. Look at the periodic table the stuff in the same column as those and further below it become more explosive further down the list. Francium will slaughter you if you don't handle it properly which is why most people will never get their hands on it.
 
Hmmm I coulda sworn that anything in the second column of the periodic table exploded when it came in contact with water (well, almost everyting) and that is Sodium and Potassium included. If you get a pretty decent size chuck of Sodium, it will blow up. Some kids blew up a toilet at my school a few years ago, almost killed them. And your chem teacher, he didn't take the stuff out of water, Potassium and Sodium are stored in oils, i'm almost positive on that, and if you aren't careful, the oils can dry up over time and lead to some very dangerous situations.
 
potassium/sodium are stored in oil cuz otherwize they react with the tiny amounts of water in the air and it explodes.

 
normal mortons table salt works fine 55cents for a small container which lasts for a day or 2 depending the area you salt, some rock salt contains bits of rocks for traction so be careful or you may end up buying the wrong stuff and make your jump/inrun/whatever slower.
 
If you really wanted to be lazy you would have typed CaCl. Not sure if that is totally right but its close enough for anybody to get it.
 
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