Calcium magnesium acetate (CMA, with chemical formula C12H18CaMg2O12[1]) is a deicer and can be used as an alternative to road salt.
It is approximately as corrosive as normal tap water, and in varying concentrations can be effective in stopping road ice from forming down to around −27.5 °C (−17.5 °F) (its eutectic temperature[2]).
Using estimates based on New York State Data, a 1992 report in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management concluded that $615 per ton would be saved in vehicle corrosion and that $75 per ton would be saved in aesthetic damage to roadside trees if the state highway agencies switched to using CMA as a deicer instead of sodium chloride rock salt, far outweighing its initial production cost.
An essential step in this conversion process is the elimination of the environmentally harmful H2S and COS from the gas that is formed from sulfur contained in the coal.
A sulfidation reaction then takes place when CaO is reacted with H2S at reducing conditions in a gasifier, yielding CaS and H2O.