Asphalt additive could continuously keep roads ice-free

This is really promising.  I also think that been able to provide a surface dressing is good enough and could even be done annually if needed.  After all really tricky conditions are usually brief events and often even once or twice or thrice at most.

It may also act as an asphault repair system as well.

Even if it is way too expensive to do the main roads, most certainly we always need this for ramps in particular..

Asphalt additive could continuously keep roads ice-free

By Ben Coxworth

February 17, 2023

Microcapsules containing sodium-acetate-based salt could melt ice on asphalt for years at a time

https://newatlas.com/materials/asphalt-salt-additive-ice-roads/?

Ice on roads isn't a good thing, but neither are the eco-unfriendly chloride-based salts used to melt it. Scientists have developed a greener and more effective alternative, however, that could be mixed right into the asphalt and remain active for years.

The chloride-based ice-melting salts which are currently spread on roads can harm the environment when they run off the asphalt and into nearby waterways.

They may also degrade the very roads that they're de-icing, plus they cause cars to rust and they have to be applied repeatedly throughout the winter. Even then, once a fresh layer of ice forms on the asphalt, drivers are stuck with it until the ice-spreading trucks arrive again.

Scientists from China's Hebei University of Science and Technology (and other institutions) set out to address those shortcomings, starting out by developing a chloride-free acetate-based salt. Such salts are considerably less environmentally harmful than chlorides, they're less corrosive to steel and other materials, plus they work at lower temperatures.

The researchers proceeded to mix the salt with a surfactant, silicon dioxide, sodium bicarbonate and blast furnace slag (which has also been used in salt-proof concrete), resulting in a fine powder. Particles of that powder were then coated with a polymer solution, producing microcapsules. Finally, the scientists replaced some of the mineral filler in a conventional asphalt mixture with those capsules.

When the special asphalt was tested on the off-ramp of a highway, it was found not only to continuously melt the snow that fell upon it, but also to lower the freezing point of water from O ºC (32 ºF) down to -21 ºC (-6 ºF). What's more, based on lab tests, the researchers estimate that a 5-cm (2-in)-thick slab of the pavement would continue to release its salt capsules for seven to eight years, keeping the road clear that whole time.