Calcium Chloride is available under the following different brand or other names: CaCl and CaCl2.

Although similar in spelling, Chlorine and Chloride are actually quite different from one another! Chloride is found abundantly in nature and is most commonly known for forming neutral salts such as sodium chloride (table salt), potassium chloride, and calcium chloride.

According to expert opinion, calcium chloride is safe to consume. It’s added to water for taste and serves as an electrolyte to keep you from getting dehydrated.

Calcium Equivalents

Calcium chloride poses some serious health and safety hazards. If ingested, calcium chloride can lead to burns in the mouth and throat, excess thirst, vomiting, stomach pain, low blood pressure, and other possible severe health effects. It can also irritate skin by causing excessive dryness or desiccating moist skin.

An intravenous bolus dose of calcium chloride of 5 mg/kg (or 0.035 mmol/kg) increases blood pressure but has little effect on myocardial contractility. The duration of effect following a bolus dose is 5 to 10 minutes. The pressor effect is much more pronounced in the presence of hypocalcemia.

Calcium chloride increased regional contraction, coronary blood flow, and oxygen consumption before ischemia, whereas oxygen and lactate extraction were unchanged. After ischemia and reperfusion, contraction was impaired and lactate extraction was reduced, but a similar response to CaCl2 was observed.

Calcium Chloride is a calcium salt used primarily to treat or prevent calcium deficiency. It is also used to treat high levels of potassium in the blood. This medicine works by increasing the level of calcium in the blood.

Calcium Chloride

• It is used to treat or prevent low calcium levels.
• It is used to protect the heart from high potassium levels.
• It is used to protect the heart and lungs from high magnesium levels.
• It may be given to you for other reasons. Talk with the doctor.

Treatment with food grade calcium chloride helps extend the shelf life of a wide variety of food products while maintaining desirable texture and flavor properties. It is used in salt processing to add a salty taste to pickles and other foods without increasing sodium content.

Pros: Calcium chloride works down to extremely low temperatures and isn’t nearly as bad for plants as rock salt. Cons: In 25 lb quantities, calcium chloride is more than twice as expensive as rock salt. It still eats away at wood and concrete by leaching out moisture and certain necessary chemicals.

Concrete containing calcium chloride hardens rapidly and develops early resistance to damage by freezing and thawing. Addition of calcium chloride results in accelerated hardening of concrete containing any type of portland cement.

ACI exclusions for calcium chloride Thus contractors can’t use calcium chloride for post-tensioned concrete slabs-on-ground or slabs containing aluminum conduit or other aluminum embedments.

A blanket restriction on any use of calcium chloride in reinforced concrete increases cost to the owner and may also result in slowed progress when some of the project is being built under cold weather conditions. Under some conditions, ACI 318-08 prohibits the use of calcium chloride.

Why use Calcium Chloride? Calcium chloride (CaCl2), has the ability to accelerate cement hydration and reduce set time by as much as two thirds. calcium chloride compensates for the reduction in strength with a higher cement factor concrete.

Safe Snow-Melt Products for Concrete

• Calcium Chloride. This is a popular snow-melt product that’s considered one of the best options for concrete.
• Magnesium Chloride. This option is also considered one of the best and safest products for concrete.
• Potassium Chloride.
• Calcium Magnesium Acetate (CMA)
• Urea.

Concrete manufacturers recommend using only sand and a shovel on new concrete! Lowering the melting point creates a water salt brine and helps the liquid from refreezing and creating pressure that cracks the concrete. DO NOT USE Calcium Chloride (CaCl), the common white pellet melter.

The most widely used accelerator is calcium chloride, which almost all commercially manufactured accelerators contain. The variety of retarders is greater; lignosulfonates and their derivatives, carbohydrates, hydroxy-carboxilic acids, dicarboxilic acids, phosphates and borates are generally used.

Independent testing of commonly used deicers has shown that calcium chloride is the least harmful to concrete (excluding Sodium Acetate and Calcium Magnesium Acetate) after 500 freeze/thaw cycles. Incidentally, liquid calcium chloride is widely used in concrete to decrease the set time of concrete in the winter.

For most concrete structures, the curing period at temperatures above 5º C (40º F) should be a minimum of 7 days or until 70% of the specified compressive or flexural strength is attained. The period can be reduced to 3 days if high early strength concrete is used and the temperature is above 10º C (50º F).