From Pools to Pickles
5 Everyday Uses for Calcium Chloride
There are dozens of uses for calcium chloride products from OxyChem, including a wide range of industrial and construction uses. But let’s focus for now on some common uses that impact your daily life.
1. Snow and Ice Removal
Snow and ice melting products from OxyChem provide fast and highly effective ice melting—even at temperatures as cold as -25°F (-32°C)—to increase pedestrian safety and help protect businesses against costly slip-and-fall incidents. With PELADOW®, contractors and business owners can melt 3X faster, use 40% less, and be kinder to the environment, when compared to magnesium chloride. Calcium chloride products from OxyChem also enable road authorities to stretch deicer supplies while maintaining ice-free pavement more efficiently, effectively, and economically when using calcium chloride products for pre-wetting as well as anti-icing.
2. Food Processing
Calcium chloride is an unsung hero in our everyday lives, improving the longevity and appeal of a variety of foods we eat. Specifically, calcium chloride can increase firmness and extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables; enhance the levels of nutritional calcium in frozen fruit and vegetables; tenderize meat; reduce the oil consumption and darkening of french fries; and even make pickles taste saltier without increasing their sodium content.
3. Refrigeration
With a freeze point as low as -60°F, calcium chloride solutions make highly effective refrigerating brines used in ice rinks, the manufacture of ice cream and frozen foods, and other low-temperature applications. Here’s how it works: within a closed, continuous loop, a calcium chloride brine is chilled to provide cooling to the refrigerated surface. Then the brine returns to be rechilled and the cycle is repeated.
4. Dust Suppression
Calcium chloride’s unique properties make it ideal for controlling dust on unpaved gravel and dirt roads. Because calcium chloride is a hygroscopic chemical, it draws moisture from the air to form a solution that keeps road surfaces constantly damp, even in hot, dry conditions. The moisture helps to bind particles together to create a hard and compact road surface while causing fine dust particles to clump together, making them heavier and less likely to become airborne. What’s more, calcium chloride provides long-lasting, year-round benefits; because it’s slower to evaporate than water, it continues to absorb moisture and suppress dust all winter long.
5. Pool & Spa
Calcium chloride is used to increase calcium hardness in pool water. Maintaining water hardness in swimming pools is key to maintaining clearer, more sparkling water.
Calcium Chloride: At Work All Around Us, Every Day
Calcium chloride is hard at work all around us, whether it’s in visible uses like ice and snow melting or behind the scenes in applications as varied as food processing and concrete acceleration. Whatever your industry or need, you can count on OxyChem to deliver the perfect formulation for your application along with support including solutions calculators and answers to frequently asked questions.
Find a distributor near you to learn more and obtain product.