Dry Ice Experiments - Feedback from our Visitors

In a prior life (I'm now an attorney based in Philadelphia) I used to service soda machines. Not the kind which dispense cans/bottles. Rather the ones that make carbonated water to mix with flavor in a cup. Compressed CO2 gas at about a 1,000 psi is reduced to about 40psi into a steel container to which cold water (the colder the water the better for the dissolving of CO2 into the water) (Carbon dioxide is soluble in water, in which it spontaneously interconverts between CO2 and H2CO3 (carbonic acid, Wikipedia) is added via strong motor driven pump (Procon pump). When, the water is ejected into the cup with flavor added, the pressure is released, the temperature rises and the dissolved CO2 releases from the water via bubbling. Yes, you can have CO2 as a liquid. It is a liquid at room temperature in a strong steel tank at about 1000psi. You can even transfer it as a liquid from tank to tank. (Very dangerous) Once the pressure is released, the liquid will try to change state from a liquid to a gas. it will "take" heat" from anything in order to use it to change state. I would load a very large two story steel tank with solid CO2 (dry ice). Seal the top. warm the tank with water along the outside which the dry ice "uses" to change into a high pressure liquid. Then i could attach a hose (obviously very, very strong) and connect smaller tanks to the large one. Open the valves, While weighing the smaller tank I could add about 30 lbs to the smaller tank to use in the soda dispenser. To add a small amount of solid CO2 to a bottle could be done with a little math. I suppose one could attach a balloon to the top of a carbonated soda bottle. Measure the change in size of the balloon as the soda warms and releases the dissolved CO2. Since solid CO2 (dry ice) expands predictably, all you would have to do is work backwards and add a small piece of dry ice weighing what you need to dissolve into the cold water in the bottle to achieve that same gaseous volume as was in the balloon.
Frankly, since i have been an attorney for the past 35 years, i might be a tad rusty in my thoughts but this is pure math and physics.

Louis E. Slawe, Esq

Dear sir or madam,

I have just recently picked up the hobby of making sparking wine (champagne). It requires taking a bottle of typical wine, putting it into a thick walled champagne bottle, and adding a small amount of sugar and fermenting yeast. The yeast will feed on the sugar and produce a fair amount of carbon dioxide but since the bottle is capped off the gas stays in the bottle. When the cork is popped, the gas bubbles off through the liquid and when drank, gives that spritzy feeling associated with sparkling wine.

Today, after researching about dry ice, I have come to the conclusion that I can pour my finished wine into a bottle, drop a measured amount of dry ice into the liquid, cap it quickly and wire down the cork. After the dry ice is completely dissolved I should be able to open the bottle, and drink it like any other sparkling wine. Since dry ice is only a solid form of carbon dioxide gas I assume it will not pose any health threat, I have read stories of people way back when they were kids adding it to their homemade soda to make it fizzy.

The reason why I would find this approach to making a sparkling wine more appealing is because when yeast re-ferments inside the bottle it throws a deposit that looks like dust or sand and that deposit needs to be "disgorged" out of the bottle before it can be drank or the flavor will be ruined and the appearence will be cloudy. It is not that the pressure is any less great than dry ice, the more sugar is added the greater the pressure, thick glass champagne bottles can handle around 90 psi of pressure. While making my sparkling wine I am very serious about safety and wear heavy clothes with a face shield while handling the bottles and store them in an Igloo cooler while fermenting in the unlikely case that one explodes. I plan to conduct an experiment with a tiny amount of dry ice in sparkling wine bottles to better create the drink I make. I wanted to pass the idea along for feedback and I will contact you when I get some results.

-Andy

Hi there,
I have in fact made carbonated water within a closed container. I made it by putting a small (tip of your thumb size) piece of ice into a plastic pepsi bottle adding water (of course..) and loosely tightened the cap. This needs to be done very carefully! I tightened the cap completely and shook the bottle as hard as I could. This increases the surface area of the water against the CO2 bubbles, thus helping the atmosphere within the bottle lower in pressure by reaching equilibrium. (Wrapping a towel aroud the bottle will keep you safe from any explosion..) Once all of the dry ice has evaporated, the result will be (highly) corbonated water. Sometimes, if there is enough CO2 dissolved into the water, fog will reappear.... Although I have done this several times, the first time I did it the pepsi bottle exploded and scratched my hand, but didn't result in shrapnel.. Just a small crack in the bottle. If you want to try it though, rolling it up in a towel should do the trick (safety-wise!)

-Harrison Frazier

Carbonated Chocolate Milk taste Great! But the Bubbles don't stop growing! A good outside drink.
Strawberry Milk might look like Lava flow.
=DK

I used about a pea-sized piece of dry ice in a 2-liter bottle of home- made strawberry wine. It was wonderful.

I did open the lid every so often to let any built-up gas escape, but I think the tiny pea was okay. I pushed against the side of the bottle to see how firm it was, and kept it in the refrigerator, and the wine was cold to begin with. I think monitoring the firmness of the bottle would be safe enough, as long as you started with such a small amount, and never let it get very far. [I hadn't filtered the wine, so it did bubble over when I opened it!]

Piet Van Allen
San Jose, CA

I was reading your article about dry ice and beverage carbonation. I found that the Green "Perrier" half liter plastic bottles are very good at resisting exploding and can build up a good amount of pressure. they are good are resisting exploding and will explode given enough pressure so always be careful. I dissected one and found that the bottle is made up of two plastic layers, an outer green thicker plastic layer and an inner clear thinner plastic layer. this unique design could explain why these bottle can resist pressure. use a quarter sized chip of dry ice, filled the bottle half way with ice cold water (ice cold water gives you more time to get away if it does explode) and let it sit for one day. the next day do not squeeze the bottle hard but if you do it will feel rock hard. do not drop it, throw it, kick it, etc. be careful unscrewing the cap and point it away from your face or anyone else. the water should be pretty carbonated. try longer time exposures for different effects. once again these bottles can resist pressure but they will explode, it is basically a bomb so be careful. FYI, putting dry ice in a bottle and closing it is kinda illegal. This Email is for informational use only. ; ) >From Dan,

Great Website!

I just wanted to tell you about an experience I had with dry ice. While camping with my family one summer I thought how neat it would be to use dry ice instead of bagged water ice to keep our food cool in our cooler. Dry ice works very well, actually too well as it froze the milk, lettuce, meat and grapes that were in out cooler. We chucked the lettuce but as it was a hot day frozen grapes sounded really nice. To our surprise when you popped one in you mouth they had a fizzy taste. We had carbonated our grapes! It was really a neat accidental experiment. So as a future MG science teacher I will add this to one of the aspects of my lesson plan when I talk about CO2 and dry ice.

Jim Hawlk

I have an interesting observation regarding the carbonation of drinks (for which people have noted in your feedbacks you can do by adding dry ice). I chaperoned for a family in Northumberland in 1999. They would shoot pheasants and sorts. Being a science grad in chemistry I was intrigued by this pump device they religiously put on all their soft-drink bottles in the fridge. After taking a glass from the bottle you were meant to pump the bottle back up with the pressure-pump lid that replaced its standard capping. My mind wondered to partial-pressures. As I recall it, the solubility of a gas in a liquid, across the liquid/atmosphere interface, is directly proportional to the partial-pressure of its presence in the atmosphere above the liquid interface. So for example if we have an atmosphere of air (nitrogen/oxygen = 99.99%) above the soda-water then the partial pressure of CO2 is close to Al Gore. Thus if you use this pump to build up pressure in the bottle it would make absolutely no difference to the partial-pressure of CO2 and thus absolutely no difference to the fizziness of the drink. Thus this gadget (which fooled these oligarchs) was a total patented scam? What you think?
Jake McCann

Hi Jake,
Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, adding air (at any pressure) to the headspace above a soft drink does nothing to dissuade the CO2 from coming out. The original seltzer bottles that had CO2 cartridges are what you need. These fill the headspace with CO2, which then establishes an equilibrium with the CO2 dissolved in the soda.

Q: Hey I was wondering how much dry ice is a pound thanks.

A: The molar mass of CO2 is 44 grams.
A pound is about 453.6 grams.
So a pound of dry ice is 453.6/44 = 10.31 moles of CO2

The Ideal Gas Law says PV=nRT
P = pressure
V = volume
n = number of moles of the gas
R = gas constant .082057 L atm / K mol
T = temperature of the gas

This allows you to calculate the volume of the gas if you know the temperature, the pressure and the quantity of gas.

Working in liters, atmospheres (of pressure), Kelvins (for temperature), and moles (for quantity), then the gas constant "R" is .082057 L atm / K mol.

If we use room temperature, about 293 Kelvins, 1 atmosphere of pressure, and 10.3 moles (for your 1 pound)

we get V = nRT/P = (10.3)(.082057)(293)/ (1) = 247.8 or about 250 liters of gas.

So, 1 pound of dry ice, when it "sublimes" (turns to gas) will produce 250 liters of gas, enough to fill 125 2-liter bottles.

I hope this helps!

-Brian

Just so you know.. The results of placing dry ice in a container with water and closing the top on it... results in being charged with a CLASS B FELONY for manufacturing a bomb.
My 14 year old son and 2 friends were playing around with this experiment and was bombarded with the FBI, Homeland Security, The Bomb Squad and 6 Police Cars. They were playing around with this in the front yard in open view. Neighbors called police complaining of sounds like gunshots.
Even though all authorities knew they were playing, they still charged these juvenile kids with a Class B Felony that will be on their records until they are 18 years old.
This is apparently a very illegal experiment and obviously know one knows this.
Charla Mask

Hi!
I've done this experiment at a friends house, when we got dry ice for the first time. We got wide range of experience from when we exploded some(not actually some, about 50 actually :D) soda bottles. So we knew when they would explode and when they were on the border to do so. I found out that you can put in about any amount of dry ice, not too much though, but about two small pellets, say 20 grams is enough.

Procedure:

Put in 10-20 grams of dry ice.
Close the bottle. If it gets too hard, open the cap a bit. Just let it fizz for a second or two. Seal it tightly again.
Repeat step 2 until all the dry ice has sublimated.
Enjoy your sparkling water! :D

Additional. Add some flavouring! *thumbs up* Try the flavouring from Soda stream.

Sincerely,
1337Elite.

To expand the "Singing" or "Screaming Spoon" idea - I decided to add a few different metal items to our dry ice during our experiments. Wearing thick winter gloves, I pressed a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, dollar coin, paper clip, and metal scissors to the dry ice. Different sounds were emitted by different coins, objects. Even the older kids laughed when I remarked, "I wonder what George Washington will have to say?" Or, "What does Lincoln think about this?" " I wonder what Sacajawea's voice sounds like?" The really cool part of this for teachers is that the students have to listen so closely- without a sound - or they will miss the noise made - because a paper clip makes such a slight noise that it is hard to catch. I think we might use a microphone on it next time. Another thing we did was the classic experiment of using an empty 10 gallon aquarium with dry ice and hot water --creating the fog that dry ice is so famous for. Then we shined different light sources into the fog: regular flashlight, black light, laser pointer, and then we dropped a glow stick into it. Now take the same tank, dry ice, and water and add Dawn dish washing soap to it. After the bubbles fill the tank, shine the same lights listed above into the bubbles. The kids had lots of "OOOs and AHHHHs" for this effect. The reflection and refraction is different with the bubbles in there. Shining the lights at different angles and from different sides of the tank produced different effects- especially the laser pointer. One more experiment that we did was to freeze a flower. Take a flower with a lot of petals- like a mum or daisy, etc... Just lay it inside the cooler with the extra dry ice while you conduct other dry ice experiments. Then after it has had time to freeze, take it out and remark on the beauty of the flower right before you smack it against the side of the aquarium. The petals will shatter into crumbles. Enjoyed your site.

Toni Aldridge

I do a science-is-fun presentation, usually for girl scouts, usually about 10 years old. I ran across your site looking for some more cool stuff to show them. I may have to carbonate grapes next time I do the show. But you barely mentioned my favorite trick - balloon bombs. Pop bottle bombs are WAY too dangerous, but balloon bombs are fun. It takes a little less than 1/4 cup of dry ice pellets to explode a 9" balloon. I put the kids in winter gloves, and have them put the dry ice in the balloon. The balloon inflates very slowly, slow enough that the kids can pass it around and feel the balloon as it inflates. When it pops the dry ice drops, and the balloon fragments flutter not more than a foot from the site of the explosion. You can speed it up with a heat gun or hair dryer. I usually hold the balloon with one hand and the heat gun with the other and have never even gotten stung by the balloon. I also have them hold the dry ice over a lit votive candle and watch it go out. I make my fog in a clear 4-cup pyrex measuring cup so the audience can see the water ice shell that forms on the dry ice.

Jo W.

Here is a picture of a soapy bubble we created between experiments. The bubble you see is at least 10cm in diameter. We made some warm soapy water and threw in a large lump of dry ice. Just an awesome display!!! We would be extremely honoured to see our effort on your great website. Keep up the cool work!!! (haha - puntastic!!).

From Julian and Anthony
(Post-Doctoral Researchers, Imperial College London)

Brian, I saw on your message board that you hadnt heard of the dent removing
properties of dry ice... I don't know if you know of the others....

Car Dent Removal
Hold a little Dry Ice on a small car dent
and it will reduce the dent without
chipping or cracking the paint.

Keep Mosquitoes Away
Place a block of Dry Ice in your yard
and mosquitoes will be attracted to it,
instead of you and your guests.

Gopher Eradication
The gas that Dry Ice creates (C02) is
heavier than air so it will find its way to
the bottom of gopher nests.

On the Singing Spoon, it might be worth specifying out that you should hold the spoon by the handle.
If you were to directly press the bowl against the dry ice the spoon could freeze to your fingers.
(I did something like that when I was kid, no lasting damage but it was pretty painful).

Popping Film Cans-
I have tried this and was amused by how the children started to try and make games with this idea. One of the games was catching the lid when it came back down and that gave me an idea:
Set the canister on the floor and put the dry ice and very little (a couple of drops or so) water in with the dry ice, to speed up the sublimation.
Have the adult both put the lid on and watch that the children do not lean over the container!!!!
Have the (kids, or adults, as in my case) hold their hands and arms straight out with their hands open and over the area where the lid will fly up and listen for the "pop" noise and try and clap their hands together to catch the lid as it goes up!!!
This was what 2 adult females, 1 adult male, 4 children and myself did last night for about 2 or 3 hours. The nine year old boy was outdoing all of us!

Thanks for the ideas on your page, hope this idea is a big hit!!!!

I was reading your web page about the accident involving the dry ice and the loss of the woman's sight. On July 3, 1999 a similar accident happened in my family.
My then three year old son was seriously injured, He lost one of his eyes, his right thumb was 75% severed and broken, his left thumb was 50% severed and he had a gash about 4 inches long on his stomach. I had also never heard of this and was mortified. My son is now doing wonderful and we are very vocal about it to let people know what can happen with what I found out after the fact to be called "dry ice bombs".
Angela Hinkhouse

I think this is a pretty important issue, as there seems to be much interest in sealing dry ice into those two-liter soda bottles. If anyone experiments with dry ice bombs in front of an audience, please stress the hazards, and the safety precautions one should take:

Squeezing the air out of the bottle before sealing it gives you time to set it down and back away before it explodes.

Wearing eye and ear protection is advisable, as is wearing heavy-duty gloves.

Do back away to a safe distance. Most of the accidents that have occurred have been due to the bottle exploding in the person's hands or when the person was within a couple of feet of the bottle. I would estimate a MINIMUM of 5 meters or 15 feet (with ear protection).

Be safe.
-Brian

Hi Brian, I'm reading your Dry Ice experiment page, trying to educate myself about how to make fog. My wife and I are also homeschoolers, by the way. My son turns 7 tomorrow, and I'm making the cake decorations. He has chosen to have a "rocket" party, so we're going to make Alka-Seltzer rockets and some other fun stuff. I have built a "launch pad" for the top of the cake, on which will sit a small Estes rocket. I've rigged up a small container to sit under the pad with a drinking straw that extends from the sealed container up into the body of the rocket. The effect I'm after is to have the DI fog appear to come out of the tail of the rocket, as if it's almost about to take off.
Here's my question for you...
I read on your page that dry ice fog "hugs" the ground. Do you think it will be able to make its way up the straw and out? Straw is only ~4" long. I'd appreciate your thoughts. Relative to your ponderings about placing DI in a sealed container, you really should check out this guys website (http://www2.be.com/~dbg/antics/index.html). These guys are a little "crazy", making CO₂ "bombs" with 2 liter soda bottles. Stand back!! I'm glad I found your site. I'll definitely be back.
Dave Jensen

It will if the straw is sealed to the container. A film can would work well for this. If not enough fog is produced with just the dry ice in the container, add a little warm water. -Brian

Thanks for the reply. Straw sealed to container worked GREAT! Kids were amazed... Dave Jensen

Isn't it great to do this stuff for the kids? I love it! -Brian

Absolutely! And to think, my wife didn't think that I should spend $8 on 12 lb. of dry ice... (she was amazed as well). -Dave

Thank you so much for your timely and well thought answer. And thanks again for putting your observations out for us to view. You, so far are the only one who has put out info we can do something with. thanks! -LKern

I have a few questions for the dry ice carbonation experiment. What kind of stores can I purchase my dry ice?

You can find dry ice at an ice dealer. These folks usually sell ice, dry ice, beer and wine, balloons and sometimes other party supplies.

Is it safe to drink the water when I mixed it with dry ice?

Not until the dry ice is completely gone!

Morris Dayan wrote: Hi again, The specific information I will like is: What is exactly dry ice (details)?

Dry ice is solidified Carbon Dioxide gas. It is obtained by releasing liquid Carbon dioxide out of a high pressure storage container, and collecting the "snow" that forms.

I would like more information about the experiments in the page: Popping Film Cans, Inflating a Balloon...

These experiments all demonstrate the volume change that occurs when the solid CO₂ warms and turns back into a gas.

...fog effects,

Fog is created when moist air comes into contact with the still-quite-cold CO₂ gas being formed from the solid. Some of the water that is in the air will freeze out directly onto the dry ice. Some of the water in the air will condense into tiny cloud droplets, forming the fog you see.

... and carbonation.

Carbonated beverages have CO₂ gas dissolved in them, usually under pressure. When you release the pressure, the CO₂ starts to bubble back out of the beverage. If left sitting, the beverage will go "flat". By bubbling CO₂ gas through a beverage, you can carbonate it a little bit. If you arrange to hold the beverage in a closed container, you can carbonate it more, because the pressure will remain high, and the CO₂ won't be able to escape. Doing CO₂ carbonation experiments is dangerous, because the container might burst. Elsewhere on the Web there are instructions on how to make a very loud bang this way. I do not recommend it, because you can damage your eardrums. But the info is out there...

... And if you know about any experiments with Dry Ice (that are not in the web site) please tell me.

If you have a strip of magnesium metal, it will burn when you light it, with an Intense white flame. It even burns when immersed in CO₂ gas (a regular candle flame will be snuffed out). The magnesium steals the oxygen from the carbon in the CO₂, and tiny particles of carbon shoot out. It's amazing.

When I make the project, I will send you the pictures of the experiments. (if you want them!). Thank You, Morris

Good luck, Morris

When looking for truth behind a rumor concerning dry ice, I came across your page. I could not find any answers so I was wondering if you could help me out. A hail storm a few months back caused numerous dents in my car. Some were very large. A friend of mine told me that dry ice can be used to remove the dents, but he did not know how to do this. If you can shed any light on this idea it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Eric Crescimano

No, I'm sorry. I've never heard of that one. And I can't imagine any application of dry ice that would remove dents. I think there're only two ways to remove them: by pulling or hammering them out, or by filling them in with Bondo, then refinishing.

Well thanks anyway. I already knew about the other methods, but figured there might be a shot that it could work. I couldn't understand how dry ice could fix dents but figured someone out there might know, if it was possible. I will have to inform my friend that this information is not true. If he has a detailed method I will send it to you. I will probably try it out seeing that my car is a junker and let you know. -Eric

This is interesting. I had never heard of the acoustic lens effect. Should be part of any teaching on acoustic waves. I would have like to see more on the basic properties of dry ice, like density, how many liters of gas does 1 cc of ice produce. This would introduce quantitative aspects into the picture. Regards, Jean-Pierre Raynauld Ph.D.

Thank you for the information that you have posted. I am interested in using dry ice in a dyno room for cooling water systems. One question - does evaporating dry ice influence the burn of an internal combustion engine if it makes it way into the carburetor? Thanks again for any information that you may have to offer. The dry ice will not be introduced directly to the water. Sincerely, Bruce Noland

Dry ice displaces oxygen, so if the concentration of CO₂ is great enough, it could conceivably choke an engine.

hi can I ask your advice please - I am organizing a bridal fair and want to create some fog effect. If I buy some dry ice how long will it be useable if I keep it in polystyrene container I need it to last 48 hours before I can use it. Thank you for any suggestions

Excellent written information on dry ice. I'm putting this page in my favorites.

How much heat does it take to melt dry ice?

I WAS VERY INTERESTED IN YOUR DRY ICE EXPERIMENTS. I WAS WONDERING IF YOU WOULD HAPPEN TO KNOW WHETHER INHALING DRY ICE WOULD BE DETRIMENTAL TO ONE'S HEALTH? SEEMS LIKE AN ODD QUESTION BUT I WAS JUST CURIOUS. THANK YOU. Brett H

Oh, yes. It can suffocate you. You must be careful not to let the concentration of CO₂ rise too high, displacing the oxygen. But as far as a whiff of the gas debilitating you, no. It won't do that. You may notice a little stinging, as you sometimes get when you inhale the vapors from a soda. This is caused by the CO₂ that is dissolved in water mist. It forms carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is pretty weak.

thank you very much for your quick reply. The reason I had asked that question was that several years ago in Germany I used to see teenagers who were seemingly smoking tobacco were in fact smoking dry ice wrapped in paper. Unfortunately, I began smoking cigarettes at about the same time and it occurred to me that this if safe might be an interesting smoking cessation device. what do you think of that possibility. thanks again for your reply.

hey, my name is Kaila and I am a high school student in Danville California. I just wanted to say thanks for having this site! I was searching for some info on dry ice, and got the absolutely most random things, so it was nice to get real information. anyway, have a great life!
Kaila

Hi, I have tried using dry ice to carbonate water in a closed container. It was actually a CO₂ bomb in a plastic beer bottle which failed to explode. I gingerly opened the turgid bottle, and found that the resulting soda water was *extremely* fizzy! The next try was even better, as the bottle actually exploded, shot 20 feet into the air and sounded like a bomb. Richard Williamson

Thank you for the fun and interesting experiments with dry ice. Do you know of any other really good web pages with fun and exciting experiments I could do for my mad scientist Halloween haunted house? Thanks again, Michael Shanklin

Hey, thanks for posting this very interesting dry ice experiment page. I am a science teacher 6-8 that just got some dry ice at the last minute, and wanted to make the most of it. I didn't have any time to think of good demonstrations to do, then I found your web site. Thanks :) -John W.

While doing some of the experiments with the kids today I encouraged them to think of some ideas of their own etc. We ended up putting liquid dish soap in the beaker with the dry ice, which formed a great deal of neat soap bubbles with water vapor and CO₂ trapped inside. They were able to scoop the bubbles out of the beaker and pop them in their hands, where the vapor was then released. They found it pretty exciting, and I though you might like to add it to you list. Glycerin should work very well for that too, but I have not tried that. JOHN M.H. WILBERS

Hey, that's great! I'm glad you had so much fun. And I really appreciate the feedback!

I am transporting some biological specimens, packed in dry ice, from Mexico to New York next week and have a question about storage. The dry ice vendor tells me if I do not put holes in the cooler it could explode. The airlines say I MUST NOT put holes in the cooler. Advice? Could you respond via email to: Nancy, N_Winterbauer@hotmail.com? And who are you? Thanks. NW

Yes, you should put holes into the cooler if it makes a tight seal otherwise. But you could also just make sure that the lid doesn't seal perfectly by judicious placement of little bits of tape. If you do use holes, they can be quite small: 1/8 diameter or so, so they could be very difficult to detect.

Brian, Thanks for your help. Nancy W

thanks for the information. we've been trying to learn more about it and your site greatly helped. we're going to have a Halloween bash in the next couple of days and a friend clued me in where I can get it in our neck of the woods!

I just got done reading your article on making fog with dry ice. I want to try that, but I want to make sure that the dry ice will not burst as long as it is in an uncovered container with warm water, right? Please reply. And thank you very much in advance.

No, nothing will burst if you do not try to seal it in an airtight container. Have fun!

Hi, I saw your web site about dry ice. The name of the process of a solid going to a gas is sublimation, what is the name of the process of a gas going to a solid?

The process of a gas going to a solid is called Deposition.

this is a great site it saved me I have a science report do tomorrow. thanks a bunch this was just great.

Thank you for so many great ideas for experimenting with dry ice. We found a fun one on our own yesterday I thought you might like. bubble maker or volcano You will need: A small squeeze bottle - a small mustard bottle works well tongs and/or a spoon for handling the dry ice small cube/chunk of dry ice about 1/8 tsp. liquid soap - we used dishwashing soap you may want to use a pie or cake tin to contain some of the bubbles that flow out fill the bottle about 2/3 full with warm water place the soap into the OPEN cap put the dry ice in the bottle and quickly screw on the open lid the bubbling starts almost immediately and the bubbles are filled with the vapor you can make the bubbles larger using your fingers and gently pulling them out - you can also make bubble chains by pulling gently on a bubble with your finger then easing back a little have fun!

Your spoon-dry ice thing also works with a quarter. In this case, I have gotten people to "listen to George Washington cry" Joe Bosco jvbosco@bellatlantic.net

Oh! That's a good one.

Hello, I need to do a science project by March. I want to do it on dry Ice but don't know where I can buy any. Could you please tell me where I can get some?

Dry ice is easy to find in most towns. Look in your local yellow pages under Dry Ice.

Do you know a website that sells dry ice online and can ship it anywhere in the us. Preferably somewhere near Virginia or in Virginia.

No, I'm afraid I don't. Dry ice is so cheap that there's probably no money to be made that way. You may have to order a case of frozen steak or lobster. That will come packed in dry ice :-)

Hi In short , I was wondering if dry ice could be, or already is, used for fighting fires. If so, what kind of problems could there be. Thanks Gregg Darlin

Some fire extinguishers contain liquid CO₂. There is no problem with this. In fact, it is a better way to transport the stuff (higher density).

Thanks for writing back -- I was asked to invest in a start up company that is trying to market "dry ice" for fighting fires, In theory - fire needs oxygen to grow and dry ice would take that but I have problems believing that as long as dry ice has been around it hasn't been thought of before for fighting fires..... Maybe it is to costly -transporting- producing, etc. ----Anyway I'll keep on searching --- Thanks again Gregg Darlin

Yes. Actually, when a liquid CO₂ extinguisher is discharged at a fire, what comes out is partly dry ice. The liquid CO₂ expands rapidly and cools enough so that part of it freezes. Anyone promoting using dry ice to fight fires as a new idea is either trying to fool you or has not done their homework. I'm glad you did YOUR homework!

Hi Brian, This start up company is planning on dropping dry ice pellets from the air or shooting dry ice pellets on a fire by a gun or a hose...... Sound crazy???

Now that you say that, it may be an efficient way to ensure that the CO₂ makes it all the way to the fire. Liquid CO₂ wouldn't have a chance. I would look further into it to see whether: 1) This is really a new idea and 2) Whether they have done any tests yet. Other inquiries, such as how strong their marketing is (do they have any firefighting insiders, etc.) should also be conducted before investing. Or just do stock market. That's doing quite well lately!

So far I have not been able to find any info. on fighting fires in this method. This company has not reached the stock market yet and this only offering shares, I haven't got involved with it to deeply because somewhere deep, deep down I see the word "SCAM"---I may be totally off base and will probably kick myself in the butt if it goes. The idea sounds great and it might word BUT what about transport it in the solid form and what about having a large amount on hand, this company is selling the equipment for all this but I also feel that it would be WAY to much money for any fire company to afford.. Anyway thanks again.. GREGG

Yes, especially compared to the present materials used for the same thing: water, usually, and sometimes a chemical powder (the identity of which I don't know). And if you smell a scam, you surely don't want to put your money there.

I have worked with dry ice and have played with it to. Try this one. Crush enough dry ice to get about half a cup then pour this into a two liter pop bottle. Have the cap ready then pour half a cup of water in. Cap quickly and tightly and throw it. If you get it to land in some water the effect is better.

Brian: I am an amateur but I am conducting some research to see if dry ice would form naturally on deep ocean floors as gas from beneath the bottom of the ocean reaches the boundary line between the floor and water. We know that the temperatures in the deep ocean trenches are way below freezing, and the pressures are tremendous. Would this cause bubbles of CO₂ coming from the Earth's mantle to freeze on the ocean floor, and prevent them from reaching the sea surface? How is dry ice manufactured? Could conditions on the sea floor manufacture it automatically? Your web page indicates that hot water causes dry ice to bubble and sublimate in a hurry. Would extremely low temperatures, high pressures, and a lack of oxygen, prevent it from sublimating? Thanks for a response.

Ok, I don't have any suggestions I was just wondering if you knew how much pressure it takes for the lid to pop off in the popping film cans experiment I'm gonna do it for a chemistry project and my teacher wanted me to see if I couldn't find out. thanks, Maggie

Nope. That's something you'd have to measure. There are miniature electronic pressure transducers on the market that aren't very expensive. Connect one to the can via some plastic hose, and be sure to calibrate it. If you get through all this, let me know!!

Do you think it is possible to clean a deep well strainer with dry ice any input you have on this manner would be appreciated. Please e-mail

Dear Brian, Thank you for sending me the information I needed. This will be a great help to me. And thank you for answering me so quickly too!!! Thanks, Dustin

why does dry ice go from a solid form to a gas form?

You wrote: why does dry ice go from a solid form to a gas form? The short answer is that the intermolecular forces are not strong enough to hold liquid CO₂ together at regular atmospheric pressure and room temperature. This should not be surprising. If you lower atmospheric pressure, you will find a point at which regular water ice does the same thing. As the water melts (at 32 degrees F or 0 degrees C) the water molecules leave the surface of the ice directly. There is not enough air pressure to hold the liquid together.

have another question: Why does some of the sun's rays go through the atmosphere and some doesn't, and how does it get out?

Some light is ABSORBED by the atmosphere because of the things the light energy does to the air molecules (usually O2 or N2, Oxygen or Nitrogen). When the light strikes a molecule, it causes the molecule to either move faster or vibrate faster or rotate faster. The exact interaction depends on the WAVELENGTH of the light, because this determines the size of the energy quantum of the light. Energy is always absorbed or transferred in chunks called quanta. If the size of the quantum matches the amount of energy required to cause a molecule to vibrate a little bit faster, it is absorbed by the molecule. If not, the molecule ignores it. For example, light having a wavelength from 5 to 8 microns (thousandths of a millimeter) is absorbed by water vapor in the atmosphere. That is in the infrared portion of the spectrum.

I hope you can help me. I am looking for information on lasers, just basic info something that a grade 5/6 student could understand. Could you guide me a site etc.? Thank you yours in education G.

Certainly! Try http://www.laserfx.com. They have a basic tutorials as well as activities you can do.

the planets subject would help because that is what we are learning in science class

I tend to pay more attention to science things you can do in your home laboratory. Do you have a laboratory? What kind of science experiments do you do there?

To whom this may concern, I am a third grade teacher and my class is talking about crystallization. I was wondering if it was possible for you to send me a science experiment about how to make your own rock candy out of sugar, water, string, pencil, and a jar. I know what materials to use but don't have any idea of the measurements, so if you could please help I would really appreciate it.

Try this site from Beakman's World: http://www.beakman.com/rock-candy/rock-candy.html

Really enjoyed your website! I am a homeschooler and I am always looking for fun and exciting ways to teach. Jane Hoffman (The Backyard Scientist) is my absolute favorite. I have seen her at two homeschool conferences. I even have a picture with her. She is a wonderful woman and a great inspiration. My kids really love doing experiments with dry ice. That is how we found your website is by looking up experiments using dry ice. Please let us know when you add any additions to your website. Sincerely, Mary Anthony (allen@lwol.com)

BRIAN THANKS FOR THE GREAT PAGE. I WONDER IF YOU CAN HELP US. MY SON IN 7TH GRADE NEEDS TO DESIGN A "SUBMARINE" TYPE OBJECT: NAMELY ONE THAT WILL SINK SLOWLY ON ITS OWN IN WATER AND THEN COME TO THE SURFACE ON ITS OWN. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE ANY HELP. THANKS BOB

Something that uses an Alka Seltzer tablet comes to mind. That's how those "Frogman" toys of old worked. An air cavity within them would fill with water and they would sink. The water would start a bicarbonate tablet fizzing, and would fill up the cavity with gas, displacing the water, and it would float again. Various things could be tried to duplicate this process: I'm thinking of plastic dispenser bottles, film canisters and the like. Do you know about Cartesian divers?

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE IDEAS . WE'LL GIVE IT A TRY. BOB

I'm trying to locate a description of how to make a clay volcano that will erupt for my sons science project tomorrow and I can't find anything anywhere. Can you help us please? Thanks. 6th gr. MOM

This is probably too late... Just make the volcano using your choice of materials: papier mache, clay, whatever, build a cup into the cone if papier mache, the clay will hold liquid if you just make a depression in it. For erupting material you can use baking soda and red-food-colored white vinegar, or just red-wine vinegar. Put the baking soda into the depression in the top of your volcano, and add the same quantity of vinegar. Stand back.

Teach us how to make a battery using items found at home. My science project is to make a battery. my teacher gave me a piece of copper and something silvery labeled NZ. please help!

the silvery stuff is Zinc, Zn. Stick a piece of copper and a piece of zinc into various vegetables such as potato, lemon, orange, etc and measure the potential (the voltage) across the two electrodes.

I have a question. The discussion is natural gas. Does natural gas get shipped to homes or businesses in a gas form or a liquid form? Second Question - I am saying, "If you raise the pressure high enough you can turn anything from a gas form to a liquid form". Is this a correct statement?

LNG is Liquefied Natural Gas. This is the form, I believe, in which it is shipped in large tankers. In use, however, it is CNG - Compressed Natural Gas. There is also something called LPG - Liquefied Petroleum Gas. This is propane and/or butane. Some gases do not liquefy above a certain temperature. For example if you raise the temperature of liquid CO₂ in a closed vessel it turns into a quasi liquid/gas. There is something called a phase diagram which plots phase (solid/liquid/gas) over temperature and pressure. Usually the diagram looks like three lines at different angles that meet at a point called the triple point. I think you can find these diagrams in the CRC handbook of chemistry and physics.

Not to bother you or anything but do you know how by any chance how to make dry ice?

It is so inexpensive that it is usually cheaper to buy it for all but the largest volume users, but you can make dry ice from liquid CO₂ by releasing it out of an expanding nozzle. Edmund Scientific co used to sell such nozzles. Another place to look for a dry ice producing thing would be at a well stocked fire safety store. Look for a CO₂ fire extinguisher. They produce CO₂ "snow".

Dear Brian, This sight is cool. After my science project is done I am going to come back and "Experiment"!
A few days ago you helped me with a question I had about Dry Ice. ( my Teacher thought it was a chemical reaction too, before I enlightened her ) Boy did that make me feel good!...

...Any way I have just one more question. What about baking soda and Vinegar?
That's a chemical reaction. But how do I describe it scientifically. I know the vinegar breaks down the compound of the baking soda releasing the carbon dioxide back to it's gas state.

That's right. Vinegar is acetic acid, CH3COOH. That H (hydrogen) on the end likes to come off the molecule when you dissolve it in water, and forms H+ ion, which is the reactive part of ALL acids. Baking soda is NaHCO3. When you dissolve it in water, the Na (sodium) separates from the rest, and now there's Na+ and HCO3- floating around in there. The H+ grabs OH- from the HCO3-, forming H2O (water), and leaving CO₂ (carbon dioxide), which bubbles out of solution. The Na+ is still in there, and so is CH3COO- (acetate ion). If you evaporated the water, the Na+ and the CH3COO- would combine, forming Sodium Acetate.

Can dry ice be stored long in a normal freezer since it might melt since its colder then a freezer and is it safe, what would u recommend for a safe long time storage

No, storing dry ice in a freezer does no good, for the reason you stated. If you want to store dry ice, you just insulate it. A foam ice chest is a reasonable container. Anything more would be a waste of money. I have stored ten pounds of dry ice for several hours. If you mean a longer period (several days?) then you're out of luck. Note that the more dry ice you start with, the longer it will last, since volume scales more rapidly than surface area.
Safety:

Do not store in a closed room in which there are living things, as the carbon dioxide gas can cause suffocation.
Do not store in an airtight container, as it WILL explode (believe me, I've been there).

Good Luck!

Would it be safe if I had chunks of dry ice in several glasses in a basement with the water bubbling and steaming for at least 5 hours without any danger to people?

Think about the amount of ventilation you will have. Will a door be open, and will people be coming and going? Are there any other sources of fresh air? Are you aiming for a "ground hugging" fog, or a fully hazy atmosphere? One thing you might try is to calculate the volume of gas you will be releasing, and relate it to the overall volume of air in the room. Do you know how to do this, or do you need help? Is this for Halloween?

Something I would like to do now that I read about it (elsewhere, Exploratorium site, I think) is to have a container trapping a layer of carbon dioxide. (Fish tank ?) Then, blow bubbles into the container. I imagine they will float at the air/CO₂ boundary. That's an incomplete idea, which still needs experimentation.

But you are correct. The bubbles will float. Another thing that's neat is to place a candle into the aquarium and light it before putting the dry ice in. Then you will have a visual indication of when the CO₂ rises to flame level. Sometimes the flame is detached from the candle, but keeps burning because paraffin vapor is still rising off the wick. But this eventually ceases because the wick cools.

Hi, I was just wondering how much dry ice should be added to any proportion of water to create a safe drink for children. Like is too much dangerous, and if so , how much is too much?

It's dangerous only if you put it into a closed container. It could explode! It also could be dangerous if there was any dry ice left in the glass and someone swallowed it or got it stuck in their throat.

I am a mystery writer who is researching a murder method involving dry ice. Assuming a room containing 1000 cubic feet of air, how much dry ice would have to be introduced so that when it sublimated it raised the CO₂ content of the room from less than 1% to about 10%? I would appreciate any help you can give me with respect to my inquiry. Thank you, Twist Phelan

1000 cubic feet is 28,300 liters. CO₂ has a density (at 25 degrees Celsius) of 1.83 grams per liter. So for a ten percent concentration, you'd need 2,830 liters of CO₂, or 2,830 X 1.83= 5.18 kilograms of CO₂, or 11.4 pounds. I have a few questions about this: 1) How efficiently can you replace the air with the CO₂? If the room is sealed, you will not be replacing the air, but adding CO₂ to it, increasing the total pressure in the room. In which case, you'd need more CO₂ to achieve the ten percent number. If the room is not sealed, you'd likely be venting some CO₂ as you vent the air. Again, you'd need more CO₂. 2) Is a ten percent concentration of CO₂ fatal? 3) For the sake of your mystery, what evidence does 11 (or make it twenty) pounds of dry ice leave? Does the victim notice the dry ice under the bed (or wherever)? Or has the room been filled with the CO₂ beforehand? Does the victim suffer a smothering feeling, causing him/her to try to leave the room? Is the victim sleeping?

Dear Brian: Thank you for your response to my query. In response to your questions: --the room is sealed, so there will have to be more CO₂ to achieve 10%. (Idea as to how much more?) --10% by volume (100,000 ppm) results in unconsciousness (preceded by dizziness, sweating, increase in blood pressure; it takes less than a minute if concentration is 11%); death from asphyxiation is ultimate result --other than leaving the air cold, CO₂ leaves no damning evidence. (And in my story there is another explanation for the cold). Victim is locked in room, so no escape. This leaves me with one more question: How long does it take 5 kilos of dry ice to evaporate at 0 degrees Celsius? Thank you again for your help (I will include you in the acknowledgements if you like)-- Twist Phelan

Hi. I'm a mom helping my daughter with her science project. She committed to do a thing that she saw on a "ideas for science projects" video and now she can't find any information to work it. The boy on the video (who won awards and cheers for his project) injected different temperatures of air into an container that held dry ice. Each temperature of air bubble reacted differently. When I return to her next week (I'm 600 miles away caring for a sick relative) I plan to just go buy the stuff and let her try this. That will tell us a bunch. But if someone, other than the un-retrievable guy on that rotten video can say they've done it already and explain some of the reasons, that would be VERY interesting to look at. Got any suggestions? In the mean time, we have really enjoyed your site here and wish we would have seen it first. What a bunch of fun ideas! We will try them just for fun when we do get the dry ice. Thanks! LKern

The only experiment I know of along these lines is to blow soap bubbles into a tank (usually an aquarium) containing carbon dioxide gas. The gas can be from dry ice, or from a baking soda/vinegar mixture. The bubbles float on top of the CO₂, because exhaled breath, being mostly air, slightly enriched with CO₂, is lighter than pure CO₂. I don't know how you would be able to control the temperature of such soap bubbles without a (probably) expensive temperature controller. Also, I don't think that the results you would be proving - that cold air is denser than warm - is very much worth the extra effort. You can prove the same thing using the standard demonstration: hang a lunch - sized paper bag upside down from each end of a yardstick or meter stick. Suspend the stick from its center forming a beam balance. Bring a lit candle or other heat source under one of them so that it heats the air within one of the bags. This will make the hot - air end of the balance lighter than the cold air one, and the balance will tip. I just thought of a variation on this: hang the bags from the stick upright, and "pour" some CO₂ gas into one of them, tipping the scale!

do you have a recipe for dry ice thank you Aaron junior in high school

Dry ice is made by using a special nozzle on a bottle of liquefied CO₂. The nozzle lets the liquid expand in a controlled way. As it expands it boils off, cooling it down quite a lot. Some of the liquid becomes cold enough to freeze. You can demonstrate this principle if you have some of that "freez it" spray - available in electronics repair shops. The freez it is Freon, and when you squirt it out of the can it too boils, and sometimes some of it freezes.

I would like to know at what temp. dry ice must be stored.

Dry ice is stored in insulated containers. No one ever attempts to refrigerate it to avoid loss - it would be ridiculously expensive, compared to the cost of making more dry ice. Visit your dry ice supplier to see the containers they use.

not seeing a direct answer, I must ask. the question was *if I sit in a tub full of dry ice, will I get wet?* since dry ice is not water at all, the answer should be no? or den, would a chemical reaction form, causing humid air... I'm not acquainted with chemical reactions, but... ...would it be possible to mix the atoms up with hydrogen, after breaking it down, and thus producing water? bill Nye did that once, I think, but only with hydrogen and oxygen, and it blew up. taby

This is a theoretical question, I presume, because actually doing it would kill you by hypothermia.

Yes, you would get wet. The temperature of dry ice is well below the dew-point for all but the driest air. So water would condense out of the air, and in fact would freeze onto the dry ice. The heat from your body would undoubtedly melt *some* of it, so your body would get wet. It's not a chemical change, but a physical change. The reaction between hydrogen and oxygen releases a lot of energy. It is the oxidation, or burning, of the hydrogen. Hydrogen itself *might* burn in CO₂. I don't have the enthalpy tables in front of me, so I can't tell. I do know that the metal Magnesium burns in an atmosphere of CO₂. It is very interesting. The metal steals the oxygen away from the carbon. You can actually see carbon particles produced.

how do I make dry ice please reply and tell me how

By attaching an expander nozzle to a liquid CO₂ cylinder, then turning it on. Much easier to just buy it.

How is Dry Ice made? I need to know for extra credit in my science class. I would really appreciate it if you could tell me or tell me where to look to find out. Thank you, Adrienne

Dry ice is made from liquid carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide gas is pumped into a storage tank and cooled by refrigeration. As more CO₂ is pumped into the tank, the pressure rises. At a certain pressure, the CO₂ condenses into a liquid. The CO₂ can be pumped into smaller tanks and delivered to users anywhere. Most restaurants have CO₂ bottles connected to their soda fountains. If you connect a nozzle to the tank that allows the CO₂ to expand rapidly from the bottle, and then release the nozzle, you will generate CO₂ "snow". This occurs because the rapidly expanding liquid boils into a gas, thus getting very cold. It then freezes into a solid due to the extreme cold. Actually, because of the extreme cold, the CO₂ may not even get to the gaseous phase before it freezes. At normal atmospheric pressure, CO₂ cannot exist as a liquid. When dry ice is warmed, it goes directly from a solid state to a gaseous state. This is called "sublimation". But if the pressure is increased, a pressure will be reached at which the CO₂ can exist as a liquid.

thanks so much for your quick reply. God bless you. Adrienne

You're welcome. Thanks for writing!

Hi there, Enjoyed your experiments with dry ice. There was one I saw 3 or 4 years ago at the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago. They have not yet responded to my daughter's request; perhaps you can help. The demonstrator slowly stuffed an entire helium(?)-filled balloon bouquet into an ice bucket filled with dry ice(?). A bit later she removed the balloons, one at a time, and we watched them gradually reinflate and rise. As soon as one of the balloons had reinflated, she hit it with a hammer, shattering the orb. Attempts to reproduce the experiment have failed. Perhaps the chemicals are wrong? The procedure? Good thing I tried it at home before attempting it in front of my 5th graders... Most grateful for any insights you could lend, Marj Mackenzie

That wasn't dry ice, that was liquid nitrogen.

Hello. Can dry ice be used to create a Halloween effect with a bowl of punch... and can we drink the punch while the dry ice is still bubbling? Thanks. Rich

Definitely. Just don't swallow any dry ice.

The bottle expands, and it explodes shortly after with a sound of either a gunshot or explosion. only try this outdoors with a 2 liter Pepsi bottle with cold water.

my question is we had a Halloween party and put dry ice in a bowl. then put punch around it. can you put it in something that you can drink? because it turns to a slush, can you eat it ? what will happen? thanks just wondering what dry ice was and you helped, just wondering about eating it.

Yes, you can drink (or eat) something dry ice is in. Just don't eat the dry ice itself!! Don't serve to small children, etc. HAVE FUN!!!

WHAT IS THE PROCESS FOR MAKING DRY ICE? IF ONE ALREADY HAS CO₂ IN SMALL 14 OZ CYLINDERS CAN IT BE USED SOME HOW? MY OBJECTIVE IS TO MAKE MARBLE SIZE DRY ICE BALLS. HOPEFULLY YOU WILL HAVE SOME IDEAS OR BE ABLE TO DIRECT ME TO A SOURCE.

Dry ice is made from liquid carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide gas is pumped into a storage tank and cooled by refrigeration....

THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUICK RESPONSE. I AM NOT CERTAIN THAT I UNDERSTAND FROM YOUR EMAIL HOW LIQUID CO₂ IS CHANGED INTO ICE AT -100 DEGREES F. I HAVE SEEN SMALL SHORT CYLINDERS OF DRY ICE. I AM TRYING TO MAKE OR BUY MARBLE SIZE DRY ICE BALLS FOR PARTY DECORATION.

Much less hassle to buy them. I wouldn't even bother to make them. Contact your local ice/beer place. They should have dry ice in pellet form or in slabs. You can break slabs into chunks if you need to. The heat of vaporization that is needed by the liquid boiling into a gas is drawn from the liquid stream itself, so part of the liquid turns into CO₂ "snow".

where do you get dry ice that is affordable that steams thank you my e mail is Bhornbec

From an ice supplier. You can buy as little as a pound of it for around a dollar.

I saw your "Saturday Scientists" page on the Web at http://www.west.net/~science/co2.htm and you asked for feedback on carbonation using dry ice. I did an experiment with my son this weekend, and he wrote it up for his science teacher at school. I'm attaching his write-up, as it explains the procedure pretty well. We didn't do a liquid, we did grapes. They're a good party food, people seem to like them a lot. A few points on the procedure: We chose a two-liter plastic soda bottle to be the containment chamber for carbonation because they're designed to withstand pretty strong internal pressure. A friend of mine has experimented with those bottles, and tells me that you can consistently get up to 15 atm before they blow up. If you duct-tape the bottle, you can get even higher, but that's a different kind of science experiment. With the grapes in there, there's maybe a half-liter of unoccupied space for gas, so you get close to 10 atm not counting gas that permeates the grape skin and dissolves in the grape. This is all seat-of-the-pants, but 10g seemed to work about right. I put the bottle in a cooler while the dry ice sublimated in case it *did* blow up. The cooler would keep the mess and any shards of plastic contained. The bottle wasn't frighteningly hard when we pulled it out. Once you decant the grapes, they stay noticeably fizzy for an hour. We also tried blueberries, but that didn't turn out as well. You can hear the berries fizz when you decant them, but the flesh is a little mealier and you can't really feel the carbonation on your tongue the way you can with grapes. This is a pretty good Saturday science project. You can explain sublimation, you can talk about getting burns from cold as well as from heat, and you can mess around with all the extra dry ice while you're waiting for the carbonated grapes. Afterwards, you can eat your results. Cheers, mike

Wow, that's great! Thanks a lot, Mike. I've never even HEARD of carbonated grapes.

I am interested in the use of dry ice for marine refrigeration applications on my small boat. I would be grateful if you could provide any info on this.

My son has chosen to do an experiment with dry-ice. He wants to add certain liquids to it and write down the results. Any suggestions? He must also know why these reactions occur. We've looked up dry-ice and carbon dioxide. what other information would explain these results. What type of liquids would you use? Please answer ASAP because the science fair is next week 2/9. By the way he loved the dry ice with the film case experiment. Thanks, your a life saver! Debi

I just wanted to say I love the experiments on your site, they sound so exciting. I am in the Science Club at school. Every year we hold a Science Extravaganza were children from the grade school come and learn about science. I am heading a committee to do projects with Dry Ice and Liquid Nitrogen and your experiments sound great. If you have anymore experiments that children from K-4 can do I would love to hear them. Any Information you can give me would be great. Thank you, Coty Zehr

Be sure to do the one using film canisters and dry ice. Kids love it! Also- somewhere on the Web there should be a recipe for Ice Cream made in seconds using liquid nitrogen. Oh! Here it is: http://web.physics.twsu.facsme/nitro/cream.htm

I was wondering if dry ice leaves any chemicals, or evidence that it has been there? I'm doing research for a mystery novel. thank you so much for your time and information!!! thanks again CK1815

This is the second time someone researching a mystery novel has asked about dry ice. I guess it is the murder weapon of choice these days. The dry ice itself should not leave a residue, but: It will condense, then freeze, moisture out of the air. After the dry ice has sublimed (evaporated), the water residue from this regular-ice "snow" will remain. It will eventually also evaporate, but may leave water marks. If the dry ice was on carpet, and not a bare floor, the water residue will be harder to detect. There's also the CO₂ itself. In a sealed room, the CO₂ will have nowhere to go. Someone opening the room for the first time may notice a shortness of breath in themselves, or could pass out.

I was wondering if you could tell me how many carbon atoms are in the formula for dry ice. I need it for an extra credit assignment. Thanks a lot. Marcy

The formula CO₂ gives it to you: One Carbon, and two Oxygen

DEAR MR. RICH, MY 8 YR. OLD SON IS DOING A SCIENCE PROJECT ON DRY ICE. HE IS PROBLEM QUESTION IS WHY IS DRY ICE CALLED DRY ICE? I HAVE LOOKED EVERYWHERE AND HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND A THIRD GRADE TYPE OF EXPERIMENT TO DO AND BRING TO SCHOOL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE TO ANSWER HIS QUESTION AND COMPLETE HIS PROJECT. HIS HYPOTHESIS IS THAT WHEN DRY ICE LOOSES ITS PROPERTIES IT BECOMES CARBON DIOXIDE GAS RATHER THAN A LIQUID, HE BELIEVES DUE TO THE TEMPERATURE IS WHY THE ICE REMAINS DRY AND NOT LIQUID. I WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR ASSISTANCE WITH THIS PROJECT. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!

Every material has different properties that determine things like boiling point, freezing point, etc. Carbon dioxide has very weak intermolecular (Van Der Waals) forces holding the molecules to each other. In a high pressure environment, liquid CO₂ can exist. But at one atmosphere it cannot. Yes, dry ice is called that because it sublimates, or goes directly from a solid to a gas phase when it is warmed. It is warmed just by sitting around at room temperature.

Greetings fellow science enthusiast! I was perusing your site for more earth experiments and I have a great one to add to your dry ice.

Place ice in vessel of hot water. (Boiling works best)
Add a few drops of dish soap.
Stand amazed.
Scoop bubbles in hand and pop or blow on them.

Coloring water makes it more flashy. I perform science for kids and teach at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Glad I found your site. Will make use of it further. Visit me at www.kryptonyvonne.com

Thanks, Yvonne! Glad you liked the site. Come back any time.

Neat experiments for dry ice.
I have not tried the closed-bottle carbonation though the idea intrigues me. Carbonated water is my prime beverage.
Why do I write this? Well, as a boy I recall my grandparents worked in the MLM food distribution. One of the products they sold was a soda pop maker. It came with a few plastic bottles (1 liters, I think) with enlarged openings that took a special cap. This cap had a valve on it that you would attach, via a hose, to a CO2 tank.
So?? I remember that cold water was best to use because it accepted the carbonation more easily. You may want to try this experiment with ice cold water. Sure it takes longer, but I bet it carbonates better and is less likely to explode.
Matt

Years ago I added some dry ice (an ounce?) and water (15oz.?) to a glass 16oz. not-returnable Coke bottle, with the metal screw-on top. I took it outside and sealed it. I expected the top to blow off. I was behind heavy glass doors. It did not blow the top off. I got worried and put a plastic trash can over it, in case the glass exploded. The next day, I got the bottle, and carefully opened it. There was a slight hiss, and I figured the pressure must have leaked away. Then I poured out the water. It fizzed. I had carbonated it.
I have been told that soft drinks are pressurized with 150 PSI as they are sealed, and then it dissolves, reducing the pressure.
...later...
I just asked someone involved in canned drinks. They said the drink is already carbonated before they put it in. But non-carbonated drinks have Nitrogen added for the strength of the can. The pressure is what makes the can strong. Look at the amount of liquid contents on a can of juice: it will say 11.5 OZ. As for the amount of CO2 in soft drinks, if you open a very cold container, and put a balloon on top, as the drink warms, the CO2 is released, and you will see that the amount of gas is about the same as the amount of liquid. The CO2 is just dissolved in it.
Kent Durvin

That's a good way to do it. Wait for the soft drink to go "flat", then measure the volume produced.
-BWR

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