Everything You Wanted to Know About Dry Ice
Dry ice has many uses in science and food packaging and beyond.
What, exactly, is dry ice? We have, naturally, spent a lot of time on this blog discussing the seemingly endless variety of uses for dry ice. It is, as you know, incredibly versatile and adaptable and – in the right circumstances – even fun! But have you ever thought about what dry ice actually is? Do you know where it comes from and how it’s manufactured and how it came to be used for so many purposes? No? Well, wonder no longer. We’d like to explain briefly what dry ice is, how it works and why it has so many uses.
First, the Science
Simply put, dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the most plentiful parts of the Earth’s atmosphere. Like the dry ice it becomes, carbon dioxide is ever-present and flexible. It is, as you probably know, the gas that we exhale during breathing and the gas that plants use in photosynthesis. It is also the same gas commonly added to water for carbonation. Carbon dioxide is generally captured during industrial processes and recycled to make dry ice.
Through a process called, “sublimation,” dry ice changes directly from a solid to a gas in normal atmospheric conditions without going through a wet liquid stage. This is why you never see dry ice take a liquid form, and where the term “dry ice” comes from.
Why is Dry Ice So Useful?
For nearly 100 years, dry ice has been used in incredibly diverse settings. Most people probably think of it for use in food storage and delivery or for special effects at Halloween or on the stage, but dry ice also has applications in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, is used for environmentally friendly cleaning projects and is excellent for street vendors.
But how did this come to pass? For most of human history, dry ice didn’t exist. In 1835, a French chemist recorded the first appearance of dry ice, as he opened a cylinder with large amounts of liquid CO2 and enough of it evaporated to leave a solid dry ice block at the container’s bottom. It took nearly 100 years of trial and error to create enough dry ice for it to have legitimate commercial uses, but once production plants in the United States opened and began mass production, people started using it for food storage and preparation, and the revolution was underway.
See, Hear, How Everything Leads Up to This Day
Dry ice is, and long has been, a fact of life for nearly a century now, and Dry Ice Corp is the largest regional supplier of dry ice products and customized delivery services in the Northeastern United States, from Virginia all the way up to Maine. And because our dry ice is supplied by manufacturing plants located right here in the Northeast, we can guarantee freshness. Other suppliers, meanwhile, get their dry ice from manufacturing plants as much as 1,000 miles away, which has a direct impact on product freshness. Ready to get your dry ice? Click here!
Everything You Wanted to Know About Dry Ice
Dry Ice Corp is the largest regional supplier of dry ice products and customized delivery services in the Northeastern United States, from Virginia all the way up to Maine. And because our dry ice is supplied by manufacturing plants located right here in the Northeast, we can guarantee freshness. Other suppliers, meanwhile, get their dry ice from manufacturing plants as much as 1,000 miles away, which has a direct impact on product freshness. Ready to get your dry ice? Click here!
Dry Ice Corp provides the highest levels of service and freshest dry ice products.
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If you have any questions about using Dry Ice to ship seafood, please contact Dry Ice Corp by calling 201.767.3200. You can also connect with Dry Ice Corp on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest.
