Using salt on icy roads, salt spray from the ocean, and salt being a part of concrete all take into effect when discussing building destruction. Salt causes the building to age and with experiments and researchers, we are slowly finding out how the environment is taken into a account. Many times, concrete in older building, like The Jordanian of Petra, the concrete contains gypsum and alkali sulfates, which are both forms of salt. Temperature triggers these elements and enters the porous of concrete, eating and aging the building. An experiment held by researchers at the Institute for Building Materials at ETH Zurich found temperature has the main effect on the destruction. The colder it gets the more active the salt becomes from the concrete and from surrounding areas. Placing a cube of limestone, which is what older building are commonly made of, into a sodium sulfate salt bath permeates through the pours of the limestone and eats it away. This is especially true when the temperature decreases. Older building are in danger of being destroyed with salt trucks de-icing the roads, wind picking up salts from the ocean and the actual element the building is made of.
Submitted by Mary Kate McNulty
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