Dry Ice Blasting.....

[john111]

Hi everyone. I am an engineering student. I read something called dry ice blasting and hazardous waste disposal while browsing net. Well I don’t know why, but I am curious to know about it. I know about traditional labor intensive methods like scrapers, wire brushes, sand blasting and pressure washing. I know dry ice is basically solid form of CO2, but I have no clue about this dry ice blasting and industrial cleaning .
Can somebody throw some light on this or at least suggest some site where I can find some info on this.

Sam.

[DaIceMan]

Hello, and welcome to the forums.

I hadn't heard of dry ice blasting, at least as a method to remove paint, rust, etc. We've blown up lotsa pop bottles with dry ice, but that's entirely a different subject. I checked out google and found a page http://www.rsg-technologies.com/dry-ice ... erview.htm that seems to have a good bit of information, including an overview, benefits, etc.

[bubba]

Its the same as sand blasting but uses small pellets of dry ice. Why this is so nice is that the dry ice decimates on impact, no moisture, no residue. This is used in removing mold a lot. They can blast the wood in the roof and walls, removing a small amount of wood inturn getting rid of the mold with out getting the wood wet again. Then all they do is hepa-vac the wood dust up and off they go.

[stev]

Another method to remove mold in building structures is to run a high energy ozone generator. In a 24~72 hour period all the mold will crystallize solid white showing that it was killed off.

This method is very beneficial when getting into tight and obscure places too.

The only kick back to this mold removing method is that anything with fabrics and rubber seals needs to be removed prior to treatment. After the treatment all interior caulking must be inspected for pealing and cracks.

During the treatment, no person should enter the structure without the proper breathing apparatus to shut-down the ozone equipment and open the windows and doors for 8 hours. Just walking into a building structure with the safety equipment on, you'll see an ozone thick haze like a frosted fog.

There are a few privately owned small businesses in our area that offer this type of treatment to rid even the worse homes and basement of spores, mold and mildew.

After the ozonize treatment, it's best to wash the windows, walls, floors and moldings so as not to have that fine white powder-like material always getting on things.

The best time to do this is when a building is being made available to new owners or tenants. This way, nothing else is inside the structure.

I can see how the dry-ice would help remove mold on the surface of block style basements and structures. But it doesn't penetrate as well as the high doses of ozone would.

One another note, the high ozone will kill of different kinds of insects too. Mostly the small body type like spiders and ants. The termites and other hard shell insects can survive these treatments.

[Apoptosis]

dry ice blasting is awesome... works great and nothing to clean up other than what you blasted off. Ideal for hazardous materials as nothing else gets contaminated