Dry Ice Safety
Dry Ice is a wonderful cooling agent, with a vast number of applications, and it can also serve as a fun addition to entertain everyone. However, Dry Ice, due to its extreme cold temperature, can be quite dangerous, if handled improperly.
HANDLING
When handling Dry Ice you need the right pair of gloves that can offer insulation for the extreme cold temperature of Dry Ice. Protective, insulated latex, nitrile, or leather gloves should be worn while handling Dry Ice. If you don’t have gloves, you can also use a towel or oven mitt. Anything that acts as a buffer between your skin and the Dry Ice.
STORAGE
Handling Dry Ice safely is of paramount importance, but storing Dry Ice is of equal significance. To prevent sublimation (Dry Ice turning back into a gas), and elongate the life of Dry Ice, store it in an insulated container, like a cooler.
ADDITIONAL SAFETY:
Children should be supervised by an adult when using Dry Ice. Dry Ice is not edible and should never be consumed by humans or pets. Take extreme caution when placing Dry Ice into beverages, such as a punch bowl or individual glasses. Allow the Dry Ice to completely sublimate (so there is no “smoke” visible) make sure that no Dry Ice is ingested. If consumed, seek medical attention immediately.
How To Build A DIY Freezer
If you have ever been camping or to the beach, or maybe the mountains, and you wanted to bring ice cream, or popsicles, but you couldn’t figure out how to keep them frozen…Dry Ice is the answer. Much like building a Dry Ice fridge, building a Dry Ice freezer requires Dry Ice. As always, wear gloves when handling Dry Ice, and never store Dry Ice in a completely sealed air tight container or cooler. You can store Dry Ice in a cooler just leave the drain plug slightly cracked but not completely open to keep it as fresh as possible. Dry Ice doesn’t melt like regular ice, leaving a mess.
Wrap your Dry Ice in newspaper, or brown Kraft paper or keep it in the bag provided. Wrap the paper tightly around the Dry Ice to keep it as air tight as possible.
Place the wrapped Dry Ice on the bottom of the cooler. For an average in a 60qt cooler, you will be able to fit 100 pounds of Dry Ice pellets (if you were filling it to the top).
Once you get your wrapped Dry Ice in the bottom of your cooler, you can add a thin layer of cardboard over top of the wrapped Dry Ice.
Add your food and drinks to the cooler,
but remember, items closest to the dry ice blocks will be colder and freeze, pack your cooler strategically.
Add another thin layer of cardboard on top of your perishable items that need to be frozen. Optional to add more pellets around the items when packing, but it will freeze the items!
Lay a last layer of thin cardboard on top of the Dry Ice, and then crumple newspaper or kraft paper, and pack on top of the cardboard to provide more insulation, and to drive out air.
What is Dry Ice ?
Dry Ice is frozen, solid state carbon dioxide, which is found naturally in many places on earth (including in the air we breathe). When compacted and frozen, carbon dioxide stays in a solid state and at an extremely cold temperature (-109.3°F below zero or -78.5°C).
Dry Ice has many applications, from protecting perishable foods & biological samples in storage and transit, to storing COVID-19 vaccines, which require storage at ultra-cold temperatures. Dry Ice can be used in many ways, including:
- COVID-19 vaccine storage
- Food storage
- Medical research and laboratory uses
- Biomedical product storage
- Hunting and fishing storage
- Chemo patients cold cap therapy to stimulate new hair growth
- Making fog for theaters, concerts, and other entertainment
- Protection against insects
- Solidifying oil spills
- Fire fighting
- Bait for mosquitoes, bed bugs and other insects
- Pest & rodent extermination