Dry Ice Science

 - by KitchenPantryScientist

We had a great time playing with dry ice on WCCO TV this morning. I showed viewers how to make spooky Halloween decorations (hot water, food coloring and dry ice), carbonate beverages, inflate a balloon, and even make a spoon “sing.”

Dry ice is literally really cool, which is why you have to wear gloves to handle it. It’s made from frozen carbon dioxide gas, and as it warms up, it goes from the solid to liquid state instantly, skipping being a liquid altogether in a process called sublimation. As it becomes a gas, it cools water molecules in the air around it, making fog. And if you add it to a liquid, it carbonates the liquid with bubbles.

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To make dry ice, you have to get carbon dioxide gas really cold and put it under pressure so that it goes instantly from the gas phase to the solid phase in a process called deposition.  Here’s a video of a machine that makes dry ice pellets:

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