This is a long shot, but I'm working on a project for desalination of inland water and we're looking at road salt application as a possible use for the salt pulled out of the water.
The trouble is I (we) cannot find regulations regarding contaminants in road salts, so that we can tell if our salt it clean enough.
Does anyone here have any experience, and/or know where to find this sort of information.
You can enter deicing into the search box - it returns about 600 documents, a manageable number to sort through depending on available resources.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
It may interest you to know that the price of salt for deicing roads has skyrocketed lately, which might make your project more cost effective. It doesn't have anything to do with a shortage of natural resources, we have enough salt for like 500 years of salt consumption, I can't remember the exact number but it's big. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure why the price is up, but probably because of all the freeze thaw cycles we've had lately, and the well above average levels of snowfall in many areas in the north. I'm not sure if the price will remain high, but it's very high at the moment.
But you should know that the high price of salt is leading some companies to experiment with deicing alternatives. I can't remember what the mixture is, but there's an alternative that involves beats and some sort of chemical that they spray on the roads. It works better than salt, melting ice at lower temps, stays on the road for multiple days so you don't have to reapply, and it's even good for the environment. So you'll have competition.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
All the salt used on the roadways here in Kansas comes from the Carey Salt Mine in Hutchinson, Kansas.
I was trying to find if they had their own web page, so you could contact someone to see what contaminates are in the salt they ship out for use on roads.
However, that link was all I found. You might also try your local Department of Transportation, because they may have some kind of safety fact sheet on road salt in use.
FG
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Thanks everybody.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Thank you Farmgirl. I'm sending that one to the rest of the class now.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
This is interesting, but I'm wondering how much output you'd have in salt from desalinization. Isn't the process cost-prohibitive? Additionally, I can't imagine it would output that much or if it was a lot it probably wouldn't be enough to compete with the much cheaper salt mining process.
Do you have any idea how much road salt we use in this part of the country? So far this season, Milwaukee County has used about 8200 TONS of road salt. There's about 2800 tons left in the salt domes and we're worried about a shortage.
Posted by ludosti (Member # 1772) on :
I know it's not exactly what you're looking for, but food grade salt may be an option for you (and it is readily available with certificates of purity). The company I used to work for did salt spray/fog testing (requiring salt with <0.3% impurities) and we bought food grade salt in bulk.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
The plant is going to be in New Mexico, and the initial calculation (hasn't been double checked yet) said about 5 - 6 tons of salt per day, for a roughly 1 million gallon per day (of influent water) plant.
The plant is going to use geothermal and solar power, and while it's not going to be the cheapest way to produce salt, the water is in such high demand that the salt disposal (process and cost) is almost a secondary concern.
I will provide more details about some of the interesting things we've found later this week, for those who are interested.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I'm very interested. Please keep us updated.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
[ February 26, 2008, 05:03 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Whoops!
Thanks for the fix aspectre, I must have copied the wrong link.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
I wonder if you could sell the salt as food-grade salt. If you're getting your salt water from the ocean, I wonder if you could sell it at a premium as sea salt.
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
Primal Curve, the trouble with using the salt for consumption is that there are some things in the brackish water which we are using for a feed source that I don't think would pass FDA regulations.
Scroll down to the more detailed pages and you can see some things that would either need to be removed or treated before they could be consumed, and that just adds more cost to the process.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Consider finding a third party to sell the raw salt to and let them do the refining?
Posted by The White Whale (Member # 6594) on :
That's definitely a possibility, but it seems kind of like cheating. The project is to get the salt out of the water and do something with it, and by putting in our presentation that we're going to sell it to someone else, and they'll deal with it probably won't get us a lot of points.
But it is probably one of the best things to do, as long as money is being made. No one (not us or the refining company) will want to pay more than they'll make from the process, unless the government helps.
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
Maybe you could sell it as Honest To Goodness New Mexico Hot Springs Bath Salts or something. I assume this is Hot Springs water since you're talking about Geo-Thermal power.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Use an example from another industry. Power plants in the desert out west have been experimenting with carbon sequestration via algae farms. The algae farm company came in originally and said they'd pay for all the work to get the carbon from the stacks to the tubes where the algae was being grown, so long as they got the carbon for free. The power company said sure, it was good PR for them to get rid of the carbon and if they didn't have to pay anything, where's the downside?
Now algae biofuel has recently been road tested and it looks like it's a go for cars. With some subsidies out there, algae biofuel will very likely be quite profitable, and the carbon used to fuel it's very rapid growth will be in demand. It's funny, as carbon is viewed as a waste product, something to be disposed of, and not what was waste is worth something. So power companies could very likely lease land space out west to build these algae farms and sell their carbon to them.
It's something happening all over the place now that companies find Green tech can turn their waste and woe into cash.
And PC has something too. The novelty of what it is probably has some value too, but that'll depend on your marketing campaign.
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