Hoping for an ice-free future (Image: Kent Knudson/PhotoLink/Getty)

BLIZZARD-bound motorists won’t have to wait for a salting truck or snow plough to clear the way if a “self-heating” road takes off.

While salting disperses ice and snow, the salty run-off corrodes the steel rods that reinforce roads and bridge decks, and also damages vehicles. With the US government striving to improve its road infrastructure after a fatal bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007, new methods to clear snow without damaging structures are being sought.

One such method, being developed by Christiana Chang at the University of Houston, Texas, and colleagues …