Dry ice is nothing more than carbon dioxide (CO2). Yes you heard right, dry ice is made up of the same stuff that you breathe out when you exhale. Now the carbon dioxide used in the manufacturing of dry ice doesn’t come from people breathing but is rather often an industrial byproduct. Raw CO2 is compressed, purified, liquefied, and solidified to create the dry ice.
Dry ice has a temperature of around -109 F and melts very quickly. Dry ice has a great benefit over traditional ice. When dry ice melts, it goes through a process called Sublimation. Sublimation is the transformation from solid state to gas state without going to a liquid state. This means that dry ice does NOT produce liquid, where regular ice would produce water. When dry ice melts, it merely turns in to a gas and disappears. This is where dry ice gets its name… when it melts, it is dry.
Dry ice was not invented. It was actually discovered over a hundred years ago. It wasn’t actually sold in industry until the mid 1920s. Nowadays, dry ice is used for all types of things. From shipping, to decorations, to cleaning, and even in carbonated beverages, dry ice becoming more and more useful in everyday life. Dry ice is also now very commonly sold throughout the US.