Dry ice blasting is known by several names: dry ice blasting, dry ice cleaning, CO2 blasting, dry ice dusting, and even environmentally sustainable cleaning. Cold Jet dry ice blasting is an efficient and cost-effective way for industries to maximize production capability and quality. Dry ice blasting is similar to sand blasting, plastic bead blasting or soda blasting where media is accelerated in a pressurized air stream to impact a surface to be cleaned or prepared. But that’s where the similarity ends.Instead of using hard abrasive media to grind on a surface (and damage it), dry ice blasting uses soft dry ice, accelerated at supersonic speeds, and creates mini-explosions on the surface to lift the undesirable item off the underlying substrate.

Dry ice blasting:

• is a non-abrasive, nonflammable and nonconductive cleaning method
• is environmentally responsible and contains no secondary contaminants such as solvents or grit media
• is clean and approved for use in the food industry
• allows most items to be cleaned in place without time-consuming disassembly
• can be used without damaging active electrical or mechanical parts or creating fire hazards
• can be used to remove production residue, release agents, contaminants, paints, oils and biofilms
• can be as gentle as dusting smoke damage from books or as aggressive as removing weld slag from tooling
• can be used for many general cleaning applications

Cold Jet dry ice blasting uses compressed air to accelerate frozen carbon dioxide (CO2) “dry ice” pellets to a high velocity. A compressed air supply of 80 PSI/50 scfm can be used in this process. Dry ice pellets can be made on-site or supplied. Pellets are made from food grade carbon dioxide that has been specifically approved by the FDA, EPA and USDA.

Carbon dioxide is a non-poisonous, liquefied gas, which is both inexpensive and easily stored at work sites.

CO2 blasting works because of three primary factors: pellet kinetic energy, thermal shock effect and thermal-kinetic effect. Cold Jet optimizes blast performance for each application by combining these forces and adjusting:

• compressed air pressure
• blast nozzle type (velocity distribution)
• CO2 pellet size and density
• pellet mass rate and flux density (particles per unit area per second)

Dry Ice is the solid form of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). CO2 is a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas found naturally in our atmosphere.

Contaminants can be dry, wet, hard or soft. Dry contaminants will break up into small chips and can be swept up or vacuumed. If the particles are large enough, they do not become airborne. If the contaminant is wet such as grease or oil, the Cold Jet stream will move or push the liquid away much like a high pressure water stream would, except that the surface where the contaminant was will be dry and clean. To prevent re-deposition, the operator should work in a methodical way, from the top down.

The Cold Jet dry ice blasting process will not damage the substrate. The size of the dry ice pellets and their velocity can be optimized to remove the contaminant while remaining non-abrasive to the substrate. The Cold Jet process can clean delicate chrome or nickel plated tools, soft aluminum or brass alloys, wire insulation and even circuit boards – all without causing damage.

Upon impact, dry ice pellets sublimate to a gaseous state and therefore dry ice particles typically do not ricochet. The removed contaminant is usually washed away by the blast jet stream and does not come directly back into the blast gun vicinity; however, safety glasses must be worn at all times during the operation of the machine.