Eli5: Some ice cream recipes put ice + salt outside the recipient to make it cool faster. But in the winter, salt is put on snow on the street to melt faster. Why one make cool and other melt?

Question

Edit: thank you all for the explanations, I now have understood much more!

In: 0

Answer 1

The sodium ions and chloride ions in common salt interrupt the water molecules bonding together to form ice and so lower the freezing point of water. https://youtu.be/oVJAZ002v5k