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Dry Ice Blasting Enviromentally Safe Industrial Cleaning
Environmentally Safe Dry Ice Blasting

Dry Ice Blasting:Portable Cleaning Service
Dry Ice Blasting: Dynamics and Limitations

Dry Ice Blasting is an environmentally safe cleaning method for numerous industrial applications including: Wine and Beverage Processing, Food Industry, Printing Industry, Marine and Boating, Maintenance and Restoration.
Dynamics

When dry ice pellets impact, they compress and mushroom out into a high velocity snow, then instantly sublimate back into its natural state as a gas. This creates a compression tension wave. The gas expands to nearly 800 times the volume of the pellet in milliseconds in what creates a small series of micro-explosions at the impact point. The punctual thermal shock also known as "fracking" along with the airstream velocity and the surfaces decreasing temperature serves to break up the coating as it becomes embrittled. As the molecular bond decreases, it simply pops off the contaminant from the inside out.

Dry Ice Blasting: Limitations
Dry ice blasting or cryogenic blast cleaning also known as CO2 blast cleaning (like most other cleaning media) is a line of sight process.CO2 blast cleaning requires high volumes of air as a propellent so the surface to be cleaned must be able to withstand the physical impact and velocity of the air stream. Normal operating pressures are approximately 80-100 psi and 120-250 cfm. Static electricity, which is usually associated with air currents, is kept under control with the use of the blast machine's grounding cable. Condensation can occur depending on the mass of the object, dwell time and dew point. Most blasting applications show no sign of condensation and the blast air should be free of oil and water contaminants. Blast air velocities at full strength can reach up to 130 db. Hearing and eye protection is a must for workers safety. Proper ventilation is required when blasting in an enclosed area. With carbon dioxide being 40% heavier than air, the CO2 is easily removed from the work site with the help of floor fans.

Cryogenic blast cleaning will not completely remove rust and oxidation from metal. Since solid CO2 is non-abrasive, it does not remove oxides other than what is on the surface. Removing the surface layer of metal is usually necessary to combat the effects of rusting. Burn demarcations in metal from welding or heating will seldom be removed due to its inability to remove surface layers. CO2 blast cleaning on wood (as with any blasting material) will raise the grain as the pith is lowered. This method used by CryoClean is an environmentally safe cleaning process servicing numerous industrial applications including: Wine and Beverage Processing Printing Industry Marine and Boating Food Industry Maintenance and Restoration.

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