Salt melting ice.

[cragar]

Why does the salt melt the ice , and if i put a soda in a cooler then put ice on it and then put salt on it , it will start to melt the ice and then cool the soda faster then with just ice alone , is it correct to say that the melting of the ice requires heat , and it pulls the heat from the surrounding's so that is why it cools the soda quicker .

[mathman]

Salt lowers the freezing point of water, so adding salt has the net effect of changing the mixture so that it is above the freezing point of salted ice.

Melting does require heat, which is taken from the soda.

[cdotter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colligative_properties