Scientists Create New Salt-Resistant Concrete

File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)
File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)
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Scientists Create New Salt-Resistant Concrete

File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)
File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)

Researchers at the Brunel University London have created a mix that can be added to concrete to protect it from the harms of the salt sprinkled on streets and pavements during the winter in Europe and many other countries.

Every year, specializing cars spread the salt, known as sodium chloride, in vast quantities on roads and pavements to stop them freezing. Water usually freezes at 0C, but when salt is added, the freezing temperature drops below this level, and the salt prevents water particles from creating solid ice crystals.

Most of this salt is ultimately washed away, but large quantities are absorbed as salty water, which causes the concrete to deteriorate and steel within to rust and corrode.

In the study recently published in the JOM journal, the researcher team led by the Jordanian Mazen Al-Kheetan, from the Brunel's department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, announced it has devised a new concrete mix -mainly composed of sodium acetate compound- that absorbs 64% less water and 90% less salt than normal concrete. It's hoped the new mix could lead to pavements that are best placed to withstand their annual dousing of salt.

"Incorporation of a sodium acetate compound into concrete, at the mixing stage, works on absorbing some of the water to form crystals that line the walls of the pores in the concrete. These crystals increase the hydrophobicity of the concrete (the amount concrete repels the water), which ensures the reduction of water uptake through the pores. Also, when applying de-icing salt to pavements made from this concrete mix, the presence of the protective compound within the pores work on fending off the water and the waterborne chlorides," Al-Kheetan told Asharq Al-Awsat via email.

"During our three-year study, we added different quantities of the sodium acetate compound to different concrete mixes, until we achieved the perfect mix providing these benefits," he added.

According to Kheetan, the new concrete mix still needs more long term tests in cold and warm weathers, before it becomes available for the industrial use, noting that "we still need two to three years of experiments before we can use the new mix on the roads."

Speaking about the possibility of using this concrete mix in regions other than Europe, Dr. Moujib Rahman, co-author of the study, told Asharq Al-Awsat: "This concrete can be used in the making of bridges, pavements, highways, houses, ports, and infrastructures or any surface that usually sees heavy rainfalls or salt precipitations."



Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation

Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
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Brazil Fires Drive Acceleration in Amazon Deforestation

Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File
Illegal burning of the Amazon rainforest near Humaita, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas, in September 2024. MICHAEL DANTAS / AFP/File

A record fire season in Brazil last year caused the rate of deforestation to accelerate, in a blow to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's pledge to protect the Amazon rainforest, official figures showed Friday.

The figures released by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which tracks forest cover by satellite, indicated that deforestation rate between August 2024 and May 2025 rose by 9.1 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024, said AFP.

And they showed a staggering 92-percent increase in Amazon deforestation in May, compared to the year-ago period.

That development risks erasing the gains made by Brazil in 2024, when deforestation slowed in all of its ecological biomes for the first time in six years.

The report showed that beyond the Amazon, the picture was less alarming in other biomes across Brazil, host of this year's UN climate change conference.

In the Pantanal wetlands, for instance, deforestation between August 2024 and May 2025 fell by 77 percent compared to the same period in 2023-2024.

Presenting the findings, the environment ministry's executive secretary Joao Paulo Capobianco chiefly blamed the record number of fires that swept Brazil and other South American countries last year, whipped up by a severe drought.

Many of the fires were started to clear land for crops or cattle and then raged out of control.