Introduction to dry ice

[dwh]

Well, the show's come and gone, and dry ice was indeed used. Source of all sorts of troubles (our chemistry department agreed to store it, and said they had suitable freezers, then told us they didn't have any freezers when the stuff turned up, so it ended up in a catering walk in freezer, which somehow got locked one night before the performance, but that's a whole other story), as well as the director deciding that she wanted it for a second scene as well (meaning we needed double what we'd ordered, cue a last minute call to the suppliers "Can we get 30 more kilos of dry ice... Delivered tomorrow", but it actually worked very well; a beautiful effect. Thanks for the advice!

[DavidLee]

Well, the show's come and gone, and dry ice was indeed used. Source of all sorts of troubles (our chemistry department agreed to store it, and said they had suitable freezers, then told us they didn't have any freezers when the stuff turned up, so it ended up in a catering walk in freezer, which somehow got locked one night before the performance, but that's a whole other story), as well as the director deciding that she wanted it for a second scene as well (meaning we needed double what we'd ordered, cue a last minute call to the suppliers "Can we get 30 more kilos of dry ice... Delivered tomorrow", but it actually worked very well; a beautiful effect. Thanks for the advice!

Just in case anyone else reads this thread for advice... You should NEVER store dry ice in a freezer. At least not if you want it work again. Dry ice is far too cold and can freeze the refrigerant leading to burst pipes. You got away with it in this case because it was a walk-in freezer and so had too large a volume to be cooled too severely but a domestic chest jobbie would very likely have been totalled by the experience!

 

David

[dwh]

Well, the show's come and gone, and dry ice was indeed used. Source of all sorts of troubles (our chemistry department agreed to store it, and said they had suitable freezers, then told us they didn't have any freezers when the stuff turned up, so it ended up in a catering walk in freezer, which somehow got locked one night before the performance, but that's a whole other story), as well as the director deciding that she wanted it for a second scene as well (meaning we needed double what we'd ordered, cue a last minute call to the suppliers "Can we get 30 more kilos of dry ice... Delivered tomorrow", but it actually worked very well; a beautiful effect. Thanks for the advice!

Just in case anyone else reads this thread for advice... You should NEVER store dry ice in a freezer. At least not if you want it work again. Dry ice is far too cold and can freeze the refrigerant leading to burst pipes. You got away with it in this case because it was a walk-in freezer and so had too large a volume to be cooled too severely but a domestic chest jobbie would very likely have been totalled by the experience!

 

David

Yes, sorry, I should've clarified, I wasn't talking about bog standard chest-freezers; I was talking about storage suitable for the temperature!

[Ike]

Sorry but catering walk in freezers are not in any way suitable for dry ice storage. Firstly you have a major problem due to the fact they have little ventilation, limited cubic footage and (usually) self closing doors meaning the chances of entering a deadly atmosphere are worryingly high.

 

While the freezer itself will probably not suffer damage from the short term storage of dry ice it does not make it suitable, most walk in freezers have a lower limit of somewhere around -20 degrees centigrade, a far cry from the -78 (or whatever) needed to prevent CO2 subliming.

 

Maybe a review of your risk assessments would be advisable before you next use dry ice, dry ice should only be stored in places with good ventilation.