Anyone ever heard of,"dry ice blasting"........

While coming back from a job today I saw a rather large truck that obviously held dry ice and they were advertising dry ice blasting.Has anyone ever heard of this procedure and if so what are it's applications,advantages,disadvantages,etc.Just curious if this is a new procedure.

 

Heard of it,I am not able to have it done at this point.
The advantages are there's no waste product.
It is "relatively" new,it was commercially available in '87.

Here's a couple of links;
http://www.coldjet.com/en/information/cleaning-comparison.php
http://www.diamonddryiceblasting.com/cleaner.php

 

It's relatively new, yes.

It's basically sandblasting, but the blaster uses a special "prilled" (tiny pelletized) dry ice. The ice strikes the object being worked on, and besides the physical impact, there's a small gas-blast effect as the pellet hits the warmer surface and turns to vapor.

It also cools softer materials, like tar, grease and adhesives, so they flake off easier.

The primary benefit is cleanup- absolutely nothing is left behind, except the actual material blasted off the part. No water, no baking soda, no corn husks, no nothing. Just paint chips and rust dust. This also means nothing is trapped in body crevices and sheetmetal seams- again, no water, no baking soda, no loose sand, nothing.

It's also relatively gentle, it won't etch glass or stainless trim.

The two main drawbacks are cost and preparation. It ain't cheap, being one of the more expensive ways of stripping, thanks almost entirely due to the cost of the specially-made dry ice itself, and the rest being the fairly expensive equipment- you can't just dump it in a pressure pot and call it good.

And preparation is just that- you have to order a load of the dry ice ahead of time, and have it delivered right when you're about to start blasting. It's like ordering concrete- you get everything ready, you set everything up, have it delivered, go to work.

You can't store it, you can't save it, you can't return any unused stuff, and if you run short, you have to order another batch.

It's a great system, but is best applied when it's benefits are needed- as in minimal cleanup or worries about getting blasting material into unreachable or unrinseable areas.

Doc.

 

I've seen it used to clean grease and dirt off old (heritage listed) machinery without removing the original paint.

 

Doc has got the TECH part of it nailed
I have seen it used:
to clean soot and smoke from buildings after a fire, works great on brick work, expencive and used for historic preservation purposes.
Used also inside of some commercial plants to clean grease and build up from the machinery and building it self.

 

Popular method to clean foundry tooling. Most large manufacturing facilities end up hiring the blast truck once or twice a year. It's kind of a niche deal and when you need it, the piece you're blasting is so valuable it justifies crazy things.

Also very popular in light industrial settings, the kind where the blast company has to schedule around cars in the lot, cause that's where they're blasting.

 

i remember making dry ice bombs as a kid.

 

Its used lots in mold clean ups and for cleaning electric motors.
Another drawback is if its used inside you should monitor the air and wear supplied air respirators because it causes oxygen depletion.

 

Used it ONCE. Had to add cooling coils to the out side of the pot. Then found out we had to install a chiller in the air supply line (compressed air gets hot). Used the system to remove a stain from an expensive($$$$$$$$) glass object for a collector.
It worked slick once we figured it out. Believe me, we did a LOT of practice first. No damage done. The insurance cost me a ton, but that is just part of doing business, I guess.

 

We use this at work to clean up our extruders. It works great but like said before it is very expensive. On the other hand though we can use it fairly close to electrical parts like solenoids and thermal couplers without worrying about them getting wet or destroyed.

 

Doc definately has the tech part down. I actually used to do this for a living. As far as cars go it works great for removing road tar. or cleaning glass. Not so great for removing paint or rust. Also works good for blasting around electrical equipment.

 

Thanks to all who replied and especially to Doc for the tech breakdown.I figured if anyone had ever heard of it they would be on here.