From immemorial times, salt is, with water, one of the products the most used by man. Thanks to its quality of unsubstituted product, therefore irreplaceable, salt is present everywhere in human and animal life, as well as in various industries.
Industrial salt
The industrial salt can be delivered either from evaporated salt, for purity requirements, or from marshes salt. Important loading installations (transport by rail and road) exist at salt marshes, with loading capacities varying between 200 and 700 tons per day.
Chemicals industry ranks among the largest salt consumers.
The main responsible for water hardness are calcium (ions Ca++ ) and magnesium (ions Mg++), which are the cause of different incrusting deposits called fur. Thus, it becomes necessary to eliminate calcium and magnesium contained in water. Water softening by sodic permutation is therefore the most used process.
It is used as a solvent for the snow clearing of roads in winter.
The spreading of solid or liquid salt on ice lowers the freezing point of water in order to cause its fusion.
The use of salt as solvent at a very high scale is naturally required by economic considerations, as salt offers by far the best effectiveness-price ratio.
