Dry Ice Blasting Technolgy

How it works

The dry ice blasting uses small pellets of dry ice sprayed through a jet nozzle with compressed air to remove paints, oil, grease, dirt, ink, adhesives and other materials you want to remove. The frigid temperature of the dry ice against the dirty surface causes adhesion to shrink and loosen from the surface. On immediate impact, the dry ice evaporates into environmentally safe and innocuous CO2 gas.

The kinetic energy ( E = ½ mv2)

 The energy associated to the mass and to the speed is transferred to the surface to be cleaned / coating removal. This is the fundamental way to work either with this dry ice method or with sand / water etc.

Thermal differential

When the dry ice pellets cold touch the surface, a small thermic difference occurs between the coating material, the contaminant and the substrate. This provokes cracks  and the detaching facilitating the removal process.

Micro – Explosion

When the dry ice touches the surface and it transforms into  innocuous CO2 gas, this tends to invade the cracks and the pores penetrating into the coating / contaminant.
Then it warms up and it expands rapidly and it makes the coating / contaminant  detaching from the substrate, favouring still further the coating  removal  or the cleaning process.

Sublimation

With an inferior pressure at 5.2 bar, the solid  CO2  transforms directly in gaseous state without turning into the Liquid state. But if the blasting pressure is superior at 5.2 bar ( 5.2 x 14.7 = 76.44 psi ), the CO2 in the sublimation state will show some characteristics of the Liquid CO2 while the same reaches  its "triple point". Has been proved that the Liquid CO2 is a strong organic solvent so it is reasonable to suppose that this solvent action can be present when the blasting pressure is superior at 5.2 bar.

The advantages of dry ice cleaning

• Save costs – increase returns
• No damage to the parts being cleaned
• Avoidance of cleaning chemicals
• Abrasion – free use
• No solvents
• Short cleaning times
• Thorough cleaning
• Reduction of downtimes
• Simultaneous disinfections
• Clean treatment
• Environmentally friendly
• Safe for all equipment
• Sanitary and clean
• No waste production

It does not produce CO2 or add CO2 to the atmosphere and therefore does not contribute to the greenhouse effect!