Why we salt the roads

Salt is used on roads to make them safer during the winter. When winter comes, roads can get very slippery due to snow and ice. To make them less slippery, salt is spread over the roads. The salt works by lowering the freezing point of the water. Instead of freezing, the water on the road melts and turns into liquid. This helps to make the roads less slippery and easier to drive on. To give an example, let’s say it’s a cold winter day and the temperature outside is 0 degrees Celsius. Normally, if it’s 0 degrees Celsius outside, water will freeze and become solid. However, if you add some salt to the water, the freezing point will be lowered, so the water won’t freeze even if it’s 0 degrees Celsius outside. Fun fact: Every winter, more than 20 million tons of salt is used to de-ice roads in the United States alone!