Apex™
Product Description
Technology Applied:The goal of EnviroTech Services, Inc. was to develop THE ONLY product that would deliver increased melting performance vs all other liquid products across the entire spectrum of temperatures experienced in combating snow and ice buildup on road surfaces. Apex is the result of product research and development required to meet that goal. Apex is a performance enhanced magnesium chloride (MgCl2) brine but is vastly different than other magnesium based enhanced products. Rather than add in substantial amounts of additives that work alongside the MgCl2 in order to improve performance, we opted to simply improve the performance of the MgCl2 itself without diluting the concentration of the active ingredient. Simply put, we have taken MgCl2 and made it Better – Faster – Stronger.
Uses or Application
- Anti-icing
When used as an anti-icer, the enhanced melting capacity of Apex provides longer cycle times between routes before snow pack buildup and allows for improved removal with simple plowing. - De-icing
When used as a liquid de-icer, Apex provides the ultimate in melting performance vs other liquid products.When applied in a stream pattern, Apex quickly penetrates vertically through the snow pack and breaks the bond at the road surface. - Pre-wetting
As an onboard pre-wetting agent for salt and sand, APEX reduces bounce and scatter, increases the speed at which the salt begins working, increases the melting capacity of the salt, and permits the use of salt at lower temperatures.
Typical Performance Properties
Apex gets the job done in the “red-zone”. The phase diagram below demonstrates the source of the improved performance of Apex. The “red zone” is an illustration of the difference in freeze points between Apex and MgCl2 when compared at equivalent concentrations. From the graph you will see that if each product is diluted 1:1 with water (from melting snow and ice) MgCl2 will refreeze at 4 degrees F while Apex will not refreeze until -8 degrees F. That 12 degree improvement in freeze point is significant when evaluating melting performance. No other liquid product, enhanced or otherwise, can boast any such improvement. The chart titled Calculated Melting Capacities is an illustration of the increased melting capacity of Apex vs MgCl2 at a wide range of temperatures. It is this increase in melting capacity that translates to increased efficiencies in de-icing operations.
Corrosion Performance
The Pacific Northwest Snowfighters (PNS) coalition has adopted a test based on a modified version of NACE TM-01-69 to measure and rank de-icing chemicals in terms of relative corrosion toward ferrous metals.
In this test, distilled water and salt are assigned relative corrosion rates of 0 and 100 respectively, and deicing chemicals are ranked according to these two standards. To be considered for use in the PNS states, a de-icer must score 30 or less (70% less corrosive than salt) on this scale. In this test APEX has been found to have an average score of 22%.