Stainless Steel Awards 2008

Merit Award - Product Category

ICEsonic
Product : Dry Ice Blasting System

ICEsonic has designed a stainless steel dry ice blasting system that is used in various industries in place of conventional chemical cleaning. Dry ice blasting, also known as carbon dioxide (CO2) or cryogenic blasting, is a relatively new cleaning process using solid CO2 pellets, known as dry ice,. It is primarily used in idustry for a variety of applications. The pellets sublimate, or convert directly from a solid blast pellet to a CO2 vapour, leaving no residue, hazardous waste or toxic fumes.

Today, the dry ice method of cleaning is quickly becoming favoured for environmental as well as production reasons. Because of tremendous environmental regulations, industry needs to minimise waste. The benefits of using dry ice are accentuated as there is little or no production downtime, quality of clean and minimised damage to equipment.

Dry ice cleaning
Dry ice pellets are made by taking liquid CO2 from a pressurised storage tank and expanding it at ambient pressure to produce snow. The snow is then compressed through a die to make hard pellets. The dry ice, although hard in appearance, does not rely on its abrasive properties for cleaning. Dry ice blasting is similar to conventional shot blasting except that the shot is replaced by pellets of dry ice, which literally disappear as soon as the cleaning cycle is complete. The dry ice particles are propelled to supersonic speed, to impact and clean a surface. The particles are accelerated by compressed air, available from standard industrial compressors. When the pellets hit a substrate with a tightly bonded layer of surface contamination, or unwanted coating, the dry ice creates a micro-thermal shock (caused by the dry ice temperature of -79ºC) between the substrate and the surface layer. The temperature differential contraction plus the kinetic energy of dry ice pellets and the air pressure crack the surface layer and allow the pellets to penetrate. Once between the surface layer and the substrate, the pellets complete their sublimation creating a large volume of CO2 gas which expands and pops off the contaminant or coating from inside out and the air stream removes dirt from the surface and into the airstream.

ICEsonic Dry Ice Blasters ICEsonic is an economical product in initial cost and continued use. ICEsonic Systems are designed for everyday industrial applications. The units are made from stainless steel and use superior components.