Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


A couple pounds of dry ice seems like a good idea,
but how to use it?

Mix with wet ice?

Or keep separate?

Richard

Dry ice will keep it colder but not necessarily any longer. The latent heat
of sublimation of dry ice (246BTU/lb) is about 170% that of water ice
(144BTu/lb) (actually heat of fusion) but at the colder temperature the heat
movement through the sides of the cooler will be more than twice as fast.

For safety sake the cooler should not be stowed below deck which can also
add to the heat load.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"cavelamb" wrote in message
news

Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


A couple pounds of dry ice seems like a good idea,
but how to use it?

Mix with wet ice?

Or keep separate?

Richard

Chris Newport wrote:
cavelamb wrote:


Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


Hmmmm - Carbon dioxide in a boat.
Darwin removes any idiots who try this from the gene pool, hopefully
before they breed and produce more idiots.

oh for Pete Sakes!

Stash an apple in the cooler, Chris.

Haven't you ever had a carbonated apple?

Richard

"cavelamb" wrote in message
nk.net...
Chris Newport wrote:
cavelamb wrote:


Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


Hmmmm - Carbon dioxide in a boat.
Darwin removes any idiots who try this from the gene pool, hopefully
before they breed and produce more idiots.

oh for Pete Sakes!

Stash an apple in the cooler, Chris.

Haven't you ever had a carbonated apple?

Richard

An apple is quite different from attempting to cool steaks, beers, etc.
Also, it'll probably be colder, but the dry ice may not last much longer.
Perhaps in an above-decks cooler would be better and safer. I sail on a boat
that has that arrangement. Perhaps a combination of dry ice and regular ice
above decks might be worth an experiment.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

When we did some offshore racing, the owner of the boat had purchased dry
ice for the trip. It was a small amount of dry ice and was kept in a shoe
box with holes cut into it. Only trick was packing things in order of use.
Those items nearest the dry ice were frozen. Any bleed off drained into the
bilge.

Stu


"cavelamb" wrote in message
news

Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


A couple pounds of dry ice seems like a good idea,
but how to use it?

Mix with wet ice?

Or keep separate?

Richard

Why going through all the cost and hassle with dry ice? Just pack extra
ice in a separate cooler that doesn't get opened every time someone
wants a drink. You will be surprised how long it lasts.
IF you want to go high tech and do have access to lab freezers (where
else would you get dry ice..., you can also 'supercool' your normal
ice before the trip. Ice at -70 C will last a lot longer than at -3 C,
with no extra weight. Glen's caveat about heat conduction still
applies.




cavelamb wrote:
Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


A couple pounds of dry ice seems like a good idea,
but how to use it?

Mix with wet ice?

Or keep separate?

Richard

Two things I can recommend. The first is the 58 quart Coleman Ultra Xtreme
marine cooler. Both in practical sailor's and my tests it beat the
expensive high end marine coolers by a significant margin.

There is also a product called Technice. It comes as flat sheets that you
hydrate to form little gel packets and then freeze as low as you can get it.
It appears to spread out the hard 32F freezing point so that it absorbs heat
at a fairly even rate. Far better performance than Blue Ice or any of the
other reusable packs.

Last month, May 30 at 8PM to be exact, I packed 12 pounds of steaks, a
Honey Baked ham and 8 pounds of shrimp, all hard frozen in a 58 quart
Coleman Ultra Xtreme marine cooler with 4 sheets of Technice on top and a
beach towel on the bottom. The next morning it was checked on an airline to
St. Thomas where it was lost for 3 days somewhere between Atlanta and Ft.
Lauderdale. The cooler was delivered to West End, Tortola and unpacked on
June 3 about 1 PM and everything was still frozen solid.

--
Glenn Ashmore

I'm building a 45' cutter in strip/composite. Watch my progress (or lack
there of) at: http://www.rutuonline.com
Shameless Commercial Division: http://www.spade-anchor-us.com

"cavelamb" wrote in message
news

Anyone out there use dry ice for refrigeration?

I want to keep the cooler cooler longer.


A couple pounds of dry ice seems like a good idea,
but how to use it?

Mix with wet ice?

Or keep separate?

Richard

Chris writes:

IF you want to go high tech and do have access to lab freezers (where
else would you get dry ice..., you can also 'supercool' your normal
ice before the trip. Ice at -70 C will last a lot longer than at -3 C,
with no extra weight.

For water, the heat of fusion is about 80 times specific heat, so
supercooling ice is hardly effective. You're much better off just using a
little more ice.

Dry ice is no good for refrigeration because it is too cold and difficult
to regulate to a higher temperature. By the time you build a contraption
to regulate the chill, you've lost any weight advantage over ice, assuming
you don't need sub-freezing temperatures.

I remember as a child seeing another child severely injured at my dad's
company picnic. Someone brought popsicles in dry ice, the kid got into
them, and took a lick.

Liquid nitrogen is a more practical wasting refrigerant since the liquid is
easy to throttle. That's what some reefer trucks use.

For water, the heat of fusion is about 80 times specific heat...
So -70 C ice would have almost twice the cooling effect
as the same amount of barely frozen ice, right?
Hardly 'hadly effective'.

And yes, twice as much ice also works, but we knew that.
That's why I recommended to carry an extra cooler w/ ice,
not a lab freezer. But I am sure a liquid nitgrogen cooler
would be practical fo use on a boat, too.


Richard J Kinch wrote:
Chris writes:

IF you want to go high tech and do have access to lab freezers (where
else would you get dry ice..., you can also 'supercool' your normal
ice before the trip. Ice at -70 C will last a lot longer than at -3 C,
with no extra weight.

For water, the heat of fusion is about 80 times specific heat, so
supercooling ice is hardly effective. You're much better off just using a
little more ice.

Dry ice is no good for refrigeration because it is too cold and difficult
to regulate to a higher temperature. By the time you build a contraption
to regulate the chill, you've lost any weight advantage over ice, assuming
you don't need sub-freezing temperatures.

I remember as a child seeing another child severely injured at my dad's
company picnic. Someone brought popsicles in dry ice, the kid got into
them, and took a lick.

Liquid nitrogen is a more practical wasting refrigerant since the liquid is
easy to throttle. That's what some reefer trucks use.

On Sat, 1 Jul 2006 22:11:56 -0400, "Glenn Ashmore"
wrote:

The next morning it was checked on an airline to
St. Thomas where it was lost for 3 days somewhere between Atlanta and Ft.
Lauderdale. The cooler was delivered to West End, Tortola and unpacked on
June 3 about 1 PM and everything was still frozen solid.

===========

That 's impressive.

Where do you get the Technice?