Having fun with frozen C02 (Dry Ice)

[Benm]

Well, dont stick your head in the freezer then

In a confined space the stuff can surely build up to dangerous concentrations, especially in a freezer with the lid on top where it stays mostly in there (because its heavier than air) even if there are minor leaks in the seal.

I suppose everyone that receives shipments in dry ice likes to mess around with it. One favourite method of disposal is filling a sink with hot water and tossing the entire load into that - quite amazing how much fog that sends around the lab.

 

[photonaholic]

Well, dont stick your head in the freezer then

In a confined space the stuff can surely build up to dangerous concentrations, especially in a freezer with the lid on top where it stays mostly in there (because its heavier than air) even if there are minor leaks in the seal.

I completely forgot the dry ice was in there.:yabbem:

the freezer hardly had anything in it, she used my electricity (never offered to pay a dime) to keep like 1 pound of ground beef and a box of ice cream treats all to herself in my basement....

 

[SupermanFTM]

xD Well this topic makes me happy.

Where does one acquire dry ice? Assuming one isn't working for anyone that uses it or one doesn't own a lab or anything.

Similarly, is there any way to get one's hands on liquid nitrogen?

 

[photonaholic]

not sure about liquid nitrogen, Probably a gas supplier.

Dry Ice is used to ship frozen meats, I have a large snake collection, so I have frozen mice shipped in once a month.

You can order steaks from the internet, and there will be a big block of dry ice in the box.

Gas suppliers also sell it rather cheap.

 

[Benm]

Depends on where you live, i suppose.

Here in holland there are a couple of vendors, but they sell in 25 kg quantity (costs around $100 or so) boxes. Per kilogram that's not that bad, but its just a bit much to be practical.

At the university we got huge blocks from the same company that supplies various gasses. Those come in specially isulating boxes that can keep the stuff for over a week, and you'd just hammer off pieces as required.

If you just want a small amount to play with, you could ask at a local university, biochemistry departments often receive shipments in dry ice and have little use for it after arrival, since they often have -80 C freezers that are just as cold.

You can also produce it from a CO2 fire extinguisher, though that will yield very littly dry ice.. could be fun if one is past expiry date and has to be replaced anyway.

 

[photonaholic]

I was clearing out the memory card and saw this one, looks cool....
The beam was hitting the block of dry ice in this one.

 

[Trevor]

xD Well this topic makes me happy.

Where does one acquire dry ice? Assuming one isn't working for anyone that uses it or one doesn't own a lab or anything.

Similarly, is there any way to get one's hands on liquid nitrogen?

Usually you can get dry ice at your local grocery store.

-Trevor

 

[Benm]

That seems to very much by country: Here in holland no grocery store sells dry ice, neither do the bigger b2b wholesale outlets.

I suppose this is because transportation lines are short with a dense population and large number of stores - no need for dry ice in (meat/fish) transportation since its unlikely that someone has to drive over an hour to get something in their own freezer.