Published Jan. 17, 1998|Updated Sept. 12, 2005
The thick, brown goo is supposed to melt ice on sub-zero roads, cost less than salt and spare the environment.
Discovered by a Hungarian distillery employee who noticed a stream that never froze and marketed by a company in never-frozen West Palm Beach, Ice Ban Magic is moving through the U.S. snow belt like a band of flurries.
And if you're really hungry, word is it tastes a little like molasses.
"The salesman took a lick of it and put it in his mouth," said John McMahon, public works director in Framingham, Mass., where the product is being tested this winter.
The main ingredient in the goop is a byproduct of beer, alcohol, corn oil, corn starch or ethanol. It consists mainly of carbohydrates, protein, fat and sugar, and is also used as a cattle feed supplement.
First used in upstate New York three years ago, it is being tested by about a dozen Massachusetts cities and towns this winter. It has been glommed on highways from Maine to California.
According to the folks who make it, Ice Ban's road to the roads began in Hungary in the mid-1980s when chemist Josef Toth began puzzling over the ice-free stream outside the Hungarian distillery where he worked.
"He was taking a break. He was looking down the mountain. Everything was frozen, except for this stream," said George Janke, chief executive officer of Ice Ban America Inc.
It turned out that the distillery was dumping its leftovers into the stream. Ice Ban's next stop was just as unlikely: Florida.
Toth asked a friend working as a chef at the Breakers Hotel to see if any Americans were interested in licensing the idea. The chef, it turned out, knew Janke's wife . . .
"It was a strange thing," Janke said, speaking from the company's headquarters in West Palm Beach.
The company went public at the end of 1996. Janke said he expects to record the first annual profit _ between $500,000 and $1-million _ at the end of this fiscal year in June. Sales should reach $10-million to $15-million for the year, between 1 percent and 2 percent of the U.S. market.
Ice Ban Magic _ a mixture of Ice Ban and magnesium chloride, goes for about $1 a gallon. It can be applied with rock salt and sand, or spread onto roads as a liquid from specially outfitted trucks.
Either way, its supporters say, it offers several advantages over traditional ice-melting methods.
Unlike salt, it works when temperatures drop below the teens. Unlike sand, it doesn't need to be cleaned up and disposed of in the spring. It also sticks to roads and stays there longer.
The Boston suburb of Westwood mixed it with salt and sand before a pre-Christmas snow storm. When roads iced up the day after Christmas, neighboring towns sent their trucks out again. Roads in Westwood stayed clear.
"It saved me a day," said public works director Tim Walsh, who is saving his remaining goop for the next cold snap.
Applied as a liquid before a storm or freeze, Ice Ban melts the first 2 inches of ice or snow from the bottom and prevents any additional snow from bonding with the pavement. That makes plowing easier, while reducing the amount of corrosive salt on the roadway.
Using the product should reduce the amount of salt on the roads by half. And it doesn't contaminate groundwater the way salt does.
"It's so environmentally friendly. That's what's so great about this stuff," said Mary Jane O'Meara, who operates the Tobin Bridge for the Massachusetts Port Authority.
Slapped by winter winds high above the Mystic River, the Tobin can turn into a treacherous slab of black ice before the thermometer hits freezing. A procession of sand trucks usually works overtime to keep the ice in check.
"You have to drop so much sand to stop the freezing, it's like a beach up here," O'Meara said.
On Thursday night, crews used treated sand and salt on the bridge for the first time.
"If last night's performance was any indication, this is a pretty spectacular product for our applications," O'Meara said. "We didn't have the black ice. We plowed all night. The deck never froze. We had no accidents. We had no skid-outs.
"We're just so psyched."
