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I've handled it for decades. First thing you do when you get your slab is that you wrap it in two towels, then you fold down the loose edges and pop that in a
by at_a_remove 6y ago
I've handled it for decades.
First thing you do when you get your slab is that you wrap it in two towels, then you fold down the loose edges and pop that in a cooler. Towels towels towels, that's my go-to.
You can handle dry ice with your bare hands -- I have scores of times -- the trick is that contact with pressure (squeezing or weight) is what is going to give you frostbite. Otherwise, I have swiftly moved two pound chunks with bare hands if I were lazy. Any pair of winter or driving gloves is sufficient so long as the fingertips aren't open. Just leather gloves are dandy.
Now, if you're feeling fearful, you can drive with the windows down, but to be honest, carbon dioxide in too high of quantities will invoke a gasping/coughing reflex. You would have plenty of warning. You can verify this by putting a small chunk of dry ice in water, leaning over the cup, and inhaling. You'll cough, and that is the reflex to look far. It isn't shy about making itself known. I have driven around with fifty pounds of dry ice in coolers with no issues.
Now that you've driven home, you can take the dry ice, towels and all, and put one in the freezer, one or two in the fridge. Now, this stuff sublimates, so you won't have water everywhere, but don't worry about pressure building up in the two compartments, you'd have to use straps to hold the doors down tight enough to be an issue. I put the dry ice at the top of each compartment, as a trend.
It'll save your refrigerator's worth full of food.
- 01100011 6y agoOne note: if it behaves like dry ice in a cooler does, it can carbonate many of your food items. I've used dry ice on camping trips and ended up with carbonated fruit.
- at_a_remove 6y agoI have used this, in a more dangerous fashion, to recarbonate flat soda.
- function_seven 6y agoDrop a few pebbles of dry ice into a 2-liter bottle, cap, and monitor for plastic stretching sounds?
- at_a_remove 6y agoI would calculate what it would bear in terms of recarbonation, get the flat soda very cold (carbon dioxide enters solution preferentially at lower temperatures), weigh, drop, cap, and roll it down a hill. If no explosion, wait a couple of minutes just for safety.
- function_seven 6y agoI can't tell if this is a warning, or a cool discovery. I feel like carbonated fruit would be a treat, but I suspect I might be wrong?
- 01100011 6y agoIt sizzles on your tongue when you bite it. I thought it was interesting but not desirable.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> Now, if you're feeling fearful, you can drive with the windows down, but to be honest, carbon dioxide in too high of quantities will invoke a gasping/coughing reflex. You would have plenty of warning. You can verify this by putting a small chunk of dry ice in water, leaning over the cup, and inhaling. You'll cough, and that is the reflex to look for. The mechanisms that regulate your breathing use carbon dioxide levels as their only input. One side effect of this is that you'll happily suffocate to death, never realizing anything is wrong, breathing a gas that contains no oxygen -- as long as it also contains no carbon dioxide. A happier side effect is that you will definitely detect, and feel very unhappy about, inappropriately high levels of carbon dioxide.
- bjoli 6y agoYou will have quite some intellectual effects before you start coughing. In fact, where we are going with adding co2 to the atmosphere, people will be measurably dumber in 50 years. Yes, really. Indoors we can easily get as high co2 levels as 1000ppm (starting from 400 something which we have outside now). That has in various studies been connected to upwards of 30% in cognitive decline in some tests like decision making. Simpler tests are also affected, but not as much. Here's an article about a Harvard study: https://archive.thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-levels-directly-affect-human-cognition-new-harvard-study-shows-2748e7378941/ https://archive.thinkprogress.org/exclusive-elevated-co2-lev... Dry ice in the car without the windows down seems like a bad idea.
- at_a_remove 6y agoI've done it tons of times. Part of having the stuff wrapped up and insulated is that it isn't sublimating like mad.
- bjoli 6y agoYou don't really notice 1000ppm, and unless you have some ventilation going you can probably reach that quite quickly in your car. I am not saying that it didn't work out or that it was reckless. Just make sure you have adequate ventilation.
- at_a_remove 6y agoJust as an indicator, you can get up to 5,000 ppm with two passengers in a car after an hour's worth of driving.
- bjoli 6y agoExactly: 5000ppm means significantly worse decision making and crisis response. How much more co2 does sublimating dry ice put out? Well packaged probably not that much, but certainly more than another person breathing beside you.