Comment on They used to be all metal too. Its time for a revolution

• Dozzi92@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Probably salt on roads. Sea air kinda rots everything, salty roads just the bottom.

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  • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    that makes sense, my southern brain didn’t even process that road salts could cause corrosion haha

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    • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      In the north there’s even people who will specifically head south to buy a car that’s never spent a winter driving on salted roads. Road salt corrodes so badly it’s nasty

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      • TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Wow that’s extreme, TIL

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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Salt only lowers melting point around 4°C, below is split. The occasional fire for heating the engine on the other hand…

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    • Dozzi92@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I don’t pretend to be an expert on salt (though I have certainly listened to the testimony of experts on salt), but I do know there are different compounds that all fall under the general heading of “salt,” despite some of them not being salt at all. And that heading is probably one coined by a layman like myself.

      As far as whether the other compounds are responsible for corrosion the way tradition salt would be, I have no idea!

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      • dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Typically they are – for two of the same reasons, first being that most of the “salt alternatives” in use, the original “salt” in this case being sodium chloride, are also chlorides (potassium or calcium chloride, usually) and it’s that chlorine ion that’s corrosive. They also all turn the meltwater into an electrolyte, forming an easy electrical connection between the various metals in your vehicle’s parts and dramatically accelerating galvanic corrosion.

        Technically any compound composed of positive and negatively charged ions that balance out to a net neutral is a salt, chemically speaking, and by definition they are compounds, i.e. held together with weak ionic bonds via their electrostatic charges and not molecules held together with strong covalent bonds. This means they like to liberate their constituent ions easily, allowing whatever-it-is they’re composed of to readily react with something else.

        TL;DR: Pretty much all salts, not just sodium chloride salt salt, are corrosion promoters.

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