Inquiry Project: De-Icers 

Dylan Walker (FRC): What works and its effect on the environment.    

Grade/Course Suitability: Sci20S (Ecology)

Objective:  The purpose of this experiment is to:

  1. determine the affect that various de-icers (both organic and inorganic based) have on the health of grass
  2. (extension) determine the efficiency of the de-icer in melting ice
  3. (extension) compare and contrast the data to find the best overall de-icer.

Materials:

Conviron plant chamber

Perlite soil

6 beakers > 200 mL

Molasses brine (60% fancy molasses, 30% water, 10% - 20% NaCl solution)

6 graduated cylinders (25mL)

20% NaCl solution

Electric balance (readability 0.001)

20% CaCl2 solution

6 Erlenmeyer flasks > 500mL

20% MgCl2 solution

Black, red & green markers

20% Urea (CH4N2O) solution

Translucent sheet of paper

20% NaC2H3O2 solution

Pro-Hex 72 cell root development system

Tap water

Adobe photoshop cc 2018

Scott’s grass seed “all purpose mix”

6 “24cm by 14cm” plastic containers

Possible Procedure:

Part 1:  De-icer impact on grass experiment:

  1. Fill all pockets of root development system 3/4 full with soil and pour grass seed that has been massed out on a balance (mass within range of 0.600g to 0.700g) on the soil in each pocket.
  2. Pour 1300mL of tap water into an opening in the container, filling the bottom tray.
  3. Place plastic covering on tray and put into Conviron plant chamber. 
  4. Wait a week or until grass is adequately grown, and then take it out of the chamber.
  5. Trim grass so that it is no longer than 5 cm and cut the tray so that there are seven 2 by pocket trays. Place each of the trays into a different 24cm by 15cm plastic container
  6. Label each tray of grass with a different de-icer, and one labelled control, and for each tray mark off the three pockets that have the most grass; these will be the pockets of grass analyzed.
  7. Fill each container with a different de-icer, and the one labelled control with water, up to 0.9cm from the bottom of the container.
  8. Place the containers into a tray so that they are grouped together and put a plastic lid or covering over everything and place back in the Conviron plant chamber.
  9. Every 2 to 3 days, take a photo of the three labeled pockets of grass for each of the trays of de-icers. Continue doing this for two weeks.
  10. With one photo, either print it large or put it onto an iPad so it can be enlarged and the put a translucent sheet on top of the photo.
  11. Using a black marker, outline the edge of the pot in the picture and then use a green market to highlight all of the green alive grass and use a red marker to highlight all the yellow dead grass.
  12. Take the translucent sheet off and put it onto a plain white sheet of paper and then take a picture of the highlighted drawing.
  13. Put the photo in photoshop, open a histogram and using a color range, calculate the number of red pixels and the number of green pixels in the picture.
  14. Add the number of pixels of both red and green, and then divide that number by the number of green pixels to find the percentage of grass that was green and alive in the picture.
  15. Repeat steps 17-21 for each picture taken throughout the experiment.

Extension Part 2: De-icer efficiency at melting ice experiment

  1. Fill 6 identical plastic tubs up with 200mL of water and put them into a freezer.
  2. Put the beaker that will be used in the measuring for the experiment on a balance and mass it out.  Do the same for the graduated cylinder that will be used in the experiment. Record.
  3. Once frozen, mass one of the plastic tubs with water in it.
  4. Fill separate graduated cylinders 25mL full with a different de-icer and then mass each of the graduated cylinders to find the mass of each of the 25mL de-icers.
  5. Pour each of the different 25mL of de-icer into the container with ice and start a timer countdown from 10 minutes.
  6. Once the timer goes off, pour the contents of each container into a separate beaker designated to each different de-icer.
  7. Mass the contents of the beaker and then subtract the mass of the beaker and the mass of the selected de-icer to find the amount of ice melted.
  8. Mass out the tub of ice too, to confirm your results from step 7 and if results differ, take the difference from the mass of the tub as the proper result and repeat the experiment.

Recommended Result Observation and Analysis:

  • Quantitatively determine the mass of ice melted for a given amount of de-icer applied. 
  • Observe and measure the percentage of grass alive after several weeks of time.  In this lab, photos of grass samples were analysed using photoshop for percentage of green.
  • Qualitatively note the ability of the different de-icers to be absorbed by the soil
  • Qualitatively, record the overall appearance of the grass for each solution tested (i.e. the impact of De-icer on grass health)

Further Exploration/Project Extensions:

This project lends itself to many extensions, as few are listed below.

  • Test different concentrations of each de-icing solution or testing different combinations of de-icers.
  • Investigate how de-icers affect different brands of grass.
  • Create and test experimental de-icers such as already created ones like pickle brine, sugar beet juice, and cheese brine
  • Investigate how different de-icers affect concrete since de-icers are applied to roads and sidewalks.
  • Investigate how de-icers affect aquatic ecosystems and plants (rivers, ponds, and lakes)
  • Research different de-icers for cost, effectiveness, and environmental impact.

View the poster for the experiment: Click Here