New Applications for Salt in Metal Casting

How Salt Serves the Production of Diesel Engines

The application fields of salt vastly exceeds our everyday use as table salt, de-icing and dishwasher salt. For a long time already, great quantities of salt are used as raw material by the chemical industry or by the manufacturing industries, e.g. in the production of paint and coatings or in the processing of animal skins to leather products. A new, rather unusual salt application has recently been discovered in the production of diesel engines.

Salt of esco - european salt company is used in the casting process of high-performance pistons in the production of the latest diesel engines for cars. A Franconian manufacturer compacts esco salt with a bonding agent to so-called "feeding models" - in this case to a ring-shaped mould that remains in the casting. After the workpiece has cooled down, this salt core is tapped and flushed out with water. A cavity is left in the workpiece, through which oil flows later on and acts as a cooling liquid.

Commonly, such feeding models are made of sand in combination with some kind of bonding agent. Salt, however, has the advantage to be thermally stable, easy to mould and easy to wash out after the casting.

Salt for Europe

esco - european salt company, a member of the K+S Group, is Europe's leading salt producer. With corporate headquarters in Hanover, Germany, the company operates a total of 17 production sites and sales offices in Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal, from where it supplies customers in Europe and beyond.

With a production of more than 5 million tons of rock salt, evaporated salt and sea salt per year, esco offers a comprehensive range of high quality salt products including pharmaceutical and foodgrade salt as well as salt tablets and compacted salt for water softening. Furthermore, the product portfolio includes industrial and de-icing salt, brine and salt for various chemical uses. In 2004, the company posted revenues of approx. Euro 360 mio., with a total workforce of 1,380 employees.