How to Make Dry Ice – With a Fire Extinguisher!

you’ve probably seen dry ice before but
did you know you can make it in this
project you learn how to make some
portable and on-demand dry ice using a
pillowcase and a fire extinguisher
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you
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for this project I picked up this co2
fire extinguisher from a local fire
equipment servicing company it’s a 15
pound extinguisher they had sitting in
storage and they said I could have it
for free it even came fully charged with
15 pounds of food grade co2 now these
are special extinguishers typically
found in restaurant kitchens mechanical
rooms or rooms of sensitive equipment
like computers you can know they’re
charged with carbon dioxide by stickers
like these or by holes punched in the
servicing label they also tend to have
an extremely large discharge horn and no
pressure gauges the operation is pretty
simple just remove the locking pin from
the handle and squeeze down when ready
the tank is full of liquid co2 but it
comes shooting out as a gas and little
chunks of dry ice snow all the residue
quickly evaporates leaving everything as
clean as when you started it just makes
it a little harder to breathe okay now
here’s the trick to making dry ice take
a cloth bag like a pillowcase and wrap
it over the end of the discharge horn
pulling up all the loose material then
go ahead and give it a blast the vapor
is really cold and it gets trapped at
the bottom of the sack there will also
be some dry ice sticking to the
discharge horn so wipe that off as
you’re pulling it out all right let’s
see what we got now it’s probably a good
idea to be wearing insulated gloves when
handling dry ice because it’s minus 78
degrees Celsius it is extremely cold but
I found if I move it around quickly
enough it doesn’t sit in one place long
enough to give me a frostbite digging
down to the bottom of the sack you’ll
find larger clumps that look something
like a dry ice snowball now these are
sublimating directly from a solid to a
gas so to preserve them a little longer
I’m going to transfer them into a little
Bowl like this one this should make them
a bit more convenient to work with as
well as keep the overall temperature low
enough to slow down the reaction alright
the bowl is full and there’s our batch
of dry ice ready for experiments using
something like the bottom of a glass or
a jar we can compact the snow to make it
as dense as possible then gently settle
it over top
if you put the lid on too tight the
pressure the gas will build and blow it
off let’s try the classic experiment of
placing a few chunks in a container and
adding some water this is how we get the
flowing fog you’d see and something like
a Halloween witches brew this can also
be poured out for a cascading waterfall
effect and look there’s no mess to clean
up if we add some dry ice to a container
of warm water and screw on the lid with
a small vent hole in it we get a little
co2 geyser rocketing out at the top
shaking it will speed up the reaction
and increase it to a pressure that could
possibly be used to drive a small motor
well now you know how to make dry ice
whenever you need it as long as you’ve
got access to a co2 fire extinguisher
now making fog is great but there are
crazier things that you can do with dry
ice that you’ll find in another project
like making a poor man’s version of
liquid nitrogen that’s cold enough to
flash freeze and orange you’ll also see
how dry ice is used in making a tasty
batch of carbonated ice cream well
that’s it for now if you liked this
project perhaps you’ll like some of my
others check them out at the king of
random calm
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