Dry Ice Uses

How many dry ice applications did you know about?

Dry ice can be used for a surprisingly wide variety of consumer and industrial uses. Check some of them out below – just remember to follow dry ice safety precautions at all times when attempting your project!

Consumer Uses

Dry ice can be used to:

• Keep perishables fresh – Dry ice can be used during a power outage to prevent refrigerated foods from spoiling.
• Reduce hair loss for chemotherapy patients – A dry ice-cooled “cold cap” can reduce or prevent hair loss.
• Removing old tile floors – Dry ice breaks old glue bonds, freeing aging tiles.
• Fix a car dent – The rapid chilling of car metal will “pop” the dent without scratching the paint.
• Trap insects – Dry ice can be used as bait to trap mosquitos, bedbugs, moths, and other insects due to their attraction to carbon dioxide.
• Make soda pop – Just add water, sugar, and soda syrup.
• Preserve grain and seeds – Dry ice controls the pests that attack stored seeds and grain; it can also be used to generate the extremely cold temperatures some seeds need to germinate.
• Add spooky smoke to Halloween displays – Dry ice is the best way to get that creepy graveyard effect for Halloween. Find more Halloween ideas>>
• Flash freezing fish – Dry ice can be used to flash freeze freshly caught fish.

Commercial Uses

Dry ice is used in:

• Food transport – Dry ice can be used for to ship ice cream, home deliver groceries, safely pack fresh baked goods, and more.
• Meat production – Dry ice is used throughout the meat processing industry to cool meat for shipping after slaughter.
• Industrial dry ice blast cleaning – Dry ice blasting is an alternative to soda or water blasting, and to manual cleaning with solvents.
• Medical and pharmaceutical shipping and research – Dry ice is an effective cooling agent for biological samples and other bio-chem applications.
• Airline catering – Dry ice is used in the airline catering industry to keep prepared meals fresh during transportation.