dry ice

[Canoe]

My ex.

[lucky420]

Ha!

[EGAZ]

Had to post. 12 yrs and thread still goin!! Learned what I needed.

Thanks people!

[Johnny Utah]

This place in Reno sells dry ice.

ice.JPG

[BaudEByter]

This may sound weird but I am flying into Sacramento and buying coolers out there. I was hoping to use frozen water bottles in one cooler instead of ice and the other would have dry ice for frozen stuff. The problem is that I have no way to freeze my bottles. I am flying on the night of the 23rd and heading in on Saturday night. Earlier is this thread there was mention of a gas supplier freezing things for you?

[Token]

Sublimation enthalpy of Dry Ice is 571 kJ/kg.

Fusion enthalpy of water (i e freezing) is 333 kJ/kg.

Water from room temperature to near freezing ~ 100 kJ/kg.

If you place equal amounts of dry ice and water by weight into the same cooler, your water will become well frozen as the dry ice sublimates.

Leave the little drain spigot open and wad in some tissue into it to let the cooler off-gas and not pop the lid at the hinge.

So, the short answer is buy more dry ice to freeze the water.

[Various]

My dry ice sublimated way faster than normal this year. 200 lbs was gone in 4-5 days. Most years less dry ice lasts longer. Even 2017 didn't kill it this fast. I'm a little curious as to what the difference was.

[Ratty]

Exceptionally warm nights?

[goodleaf]

Our dry ice went quicker this year too and agree with Ratty, our suspicion was the warmer nights (it took a lot longer for the warm air to cool down in the evenings this year compared to last year).

[Popeye]

It seemed a lot more humid this year, if it was then air would conduct more heat from the cooler/dry ice.

[Drake12321]

Dry ice is a very cool way.

[Jeannie Ginx]

Just remember dear folks, dry ice is frozen CO2. if you sleep in your vehicle keep your cooler outside at night while you sleep and put it in there during the day. Just in case you taped up your car and have a small air leak in your cooler.

I use to have a huge freezer of dry ice at work for packing blood samples. When the freezer was a near empty I had to stick my head way inside to get the dry ice out and you simply can't breath cause there is no O2.

Be safe.
Loves
J

[lucky420]

Best to keep your coolers in the shade (as much as possible) off the ground, covered with windowshield shiny covers, blankets, etc. and make sure the inside is packed properly.

Keeping it inside your vehicle would just make it all melt so much faster...

[JohnKlein94]

The strength of dry ice is also its weakness. It is COLD.

Heat transfer is a function of the difference between two temperatures. If you have a 100F ambient and a -40 cooler temp, a lot more heat will be transferred than if you had a 100F ambient and a 33F cooler.

So yeah, you can super-freeze your otter pops, but the price is steep due to the extreme thermal gradient.
I also advise you to read the information on my GEOFinder.
Three best strategies:

1). Pre-freeze everything at home. Put your freezer to the coldest setting and let your stuff freeze for a week before BM.

2). Double-insulate the cooler and get it off the playa floor in a shaded spot. Assign a Cooler Nazi to eliminate in-and-outs. Keep it closed.

3). Wrap the dry ice in newspaper. This prevents the cooler from going -40. All you really want is about +25F. remember that frozen is frozen. You dont need ultracold. In doing so you save a lot of dry ice.

FWIW, one resourceful burner had access to liquid nitrogen and put a dribble into his cooler for a few hours before leaving to prefreeze everything. Worked nicely but he still needed a trip to Arctica the last day.

Thank you very much for the advice.

[Drizzt321]

The strength of dry ice is also its weakness. It is COLD.

Heat transfer is a function of the difference between two temperatures. If you have a 100F ambient and a -40 cooler temp, a lot more heat will be transferred than if you had a 100F ambient and a 33F cooler.

So yeah, you can super-freeze your otter pops, but the price is steep due to the extreme thermal gradient.
I also advise you to read the information on my GEOFinder.
Three best strategies:

1). Pre-freeze everything at home. Put your freezer to the coldest setting and let your stuff freeze for a week before BM.

2). Double-insulate the cooler and get it off the playa floor in a shaded spot. Assign a Cooler Nazi to eliminate in-and-outs. Keep it closed.

3). Wrap the dry ice in newspaper. This prevents the cooler from going -40. All you really want is about +25F. remember that frozen is frozen. You dont need ultracold. In doing so you save a lot of dry ice.

FWIW, one resourceful burner had access to liquid nitrogen and put a dribble into his cooler for a few hours before leaving to prefreeze everything. Worked nicely but he still needed a trip to Arctica the last day.

Thank you very much for the advice.

And when wrapping in newspaper, make sure to wear some thick gloves, and pay attention to your fingers. If you feel them getting numb, put what you have done in the cooler and close the top and let your hands warm up for a bit. Dry ice will absolutely freeze your fingers off if you give it enough of a chance.

[kowtow]

A big kudo's to dry ice! It's amazing shit when you have few alternatives. It's likely losing its attractiveness given solar generators and the like, but it still serves a kick-ass purpose for what it was designed for and if logistics are constrained its a rock star.

My first burn I brought a cooler 'dedicated' with 150lbs of dry ice. I did a lot of research prior to TTITD and had the understanding that I was going to lose 10lbs (minimum a day) just to sublimation. Keeping that in mind, and that I had arrived a week early before gate, I was still handing out rock-hard frozen otter-pops the day of the Burn thanks to dry ice.

It's incredible stuff and it serves its purpose. If you've ever been in AZ on a river float down the Colorado river in the middle of summer with a cooler containing dry ice and otter-pops then you'll know what I'm talking about.

Keep in mind the precautions:

• Never touch the dry ice with your bare hands, bad shit can happen

• It's cold shit so keep it from any materials that could be destroyed by extremely cold temperatures (e.g. plastic coolers, sandwiches, fresh fruit and the like)

• Wrap it in newspaper, cardboard, 'old' towels, etc. to reduce sublimation and temper the extreme cold

My burn these days has much more 'power' available, so I can power a chest freezer for less than 1,000watts/day, so I don't have the same need for the dry ice that I once had. Evaluate your needs and if you need to keep shit cold then dry ice is definitely a suitable solution.