Cleaning with dry ice blasting

Dry Ice Blasting can be compared to sand blasting, bead blasting or soda blasting, where 3 mm dry ice pellets are accelerated in a pressurised air stream to impact the surface to be cleaned. Once in contact with the surface, the dry ice evaporates. This process is called sublimation and is a unique characteristic of dry ice, which makes it ideal for cleaning a variety of industrial equipment, especially in food processing facilities where it renders a quick and easy clean of different surfaces to get these back into production straightaway.

Traditional cleaning methods are time-consuming, labour-intensive and costly. Manual scraping or scrubbing with wire brushes and water or chemicals can take up to several hours, can cause damage to equipment thereby shortening asset lifetime, and results in extended downtime. Dry ice blasting does not create secondary waste or chemical residues, is non-abrasive, non-conductive, non-flammable, and non-toxic. It reduces or eliminates employee exposure to chemicals and is environmentally friendly. Unlike other blast media dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) at a temperature of -78.5 °C. Dry ice blasting utilises ice pellets, which are accelerated in a pressurised air stream and subsequently directed at the surface to be cleaned. The dry ice freezes the dirt on impact, then rapidly sublimates while the CO2 gas removes the frozen dirt without causing damage or abrasion to the surface. Because of the temperature difference between the dry ice particles and the surface being treated, thermal shock occurs during the process. This causes a breakdown of the bond between the two dissimilar materials.

The dry ice pellets are accelerated by up to 300 m/s with compressed air and then blasted onto the surface to be cleaned. The second part of the cleaning process is the impact of the kinetic energy.

Dry ice cleaning is applicable to many industries including mining, electrical, food processing, pharmaceutical, and automotive.

For more information view the koolinice video at: www.koolinice.co.za/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Untitled.mp4