Dry Ice a/c setup?

[Dgorila1]

I've read about swamp coolers and how they don't work well on the humid East Coast. Has anyone made a cooler setup that you could place dry ice in and blow a fan over to cool the air? Seems like it would work (at least in theory). Most grocery stores have dry ice now along with ice supply companies.

 

[NeedAnEscape]

You will need some form of heat exchange system to avoid pumping cold carbon dioxide into the van and place your dry ice "ac" outside.

 

[jimindenver]

it's CO2 if I remember right. You could suffocate in a unvented space.

 

[highdesertranger]

be very, very careful with dry ice. you do realize that dry ice is -109F. that's right, minus 109 degrees F. that is so cold if you touch it you will have instant frostbite. not to mention it is pure CO2. while CO2 in itself is harmless unless you subscribe to man made global warming. if the concentration were to build up in an enclosed area you could suffocate. highdesertranger

 

[Dgorila1]

Yeah, I know about CO2 displacing O2. Handling it is safe as long as you wear gloves. The heat exchanger idea would probably work, would just need to figure out the best configuration for efficiency. I wonder how long the dry ice would last. Regular ice doesn't last long due to melting but if the dry ice container was well insulated it should last a pretty good time, possibly several days. I'll have to ask around work to see how long it lasts in the shippers we use to ship items worldwide. All our shipping volumes are validated at worst case scenerio to prove the dry ice will maintain the low temps required, so the data should be a good starting point. This is in a static (closed) shipping container, so if a heat exchanger setup with a fan were used I would expect the ice to evaporate at a quicker rate. Let me see what I can find out from our testing.

 

[BradKW]

I couldn't find it, but not long ago someone made a very informative post regarding the cooling capacity of ice, breaking it down to stored BTUs and comparing it to (iirc) a 5000btu window unit. What I basically took from it was that you can't really cool a space for any real period of time, but that you can give yourself a cool breeze if sitting in front of a fan.

Maybe someone will link the post...it's probably buried in one of Debit's clickbait threads...

 

[highdesertranger]

I miss Debit's crazy posts, wish he would come back. his posts were entertaining. back to the dry ice, obviously you think it will work, so try it, then report back with results. highdesertranger

 

[jimindenver]

I would put the Dry ice in a sealed cooler with several tubes run through it. Blow some air through the tubes and it will act like a heat exchange with less direct impact on the dry ice than exposing it to water. Would work with regular Ice too but in both cases the exchange would be slowed to give a longer run time.

 

[ViaVacavi]

I'm sure it would work, but in the end you wil be paying for
- The cost of electricity or other fuel source it took to compress the CO2 to dry ice form
- The costs associated with storing the dry ice until it could be sold. This includes at the mauacturer, distributor and/or reseller.
- All transportation costs (including your own) to get the dry ice to its final location

If you didn't pay for all of this wrapped into the final cost, then obviously someone would be out of business. Its highly unlikely that this cost would be less than a standard air conditioner run off of a gasoline generator on a per-btu basis. Aside from electricity, gasoline has one of the largest and most efficient distribution infrastructures you'll find anywhere, meaning you'l find it just about everwhere and cheaper than most othre options available

 

[VJG1977]

I would put the Dry ice in a sealed cooler with several tubes run through it. Blow some air through the tubes and it will act like a heat exchange with less direct impact on the dry ice than exposing it to water. Would work with regular Ice too but in both cases the exchange would be slowed to give a longer run time.

Be very careful with placing dry ice in a sealed container. As dry ice "melts" it sublimates to a gas and pressure will build.  It could explode with a great deal of force.

 

[RossCoe]

I recently needed to transport alcoholic ice cream from SC to NJ for a Bachelorette party for my daughter.  Traveling with 2 dogs it takes 14 hrs or so of driving time.  The first time I tried it we just used regular ice and the ice cream was half melted by the time we got home.

So the 2nd attempt we found dry ice in a Publix grocery store.  (I googled dry ice suppliers for where we were in SC and nothing came up except for Savannah area.)  A neighbor who runs a restaurant pointed me to Publix. (So why didn't google??)
A 6 lb block (1.5 inches thick X 8 in x 12 in)  was $2 a lb.  I wrapped it in a towel, used reg. ice packs on the bottom of the soft sided cooler, 4 pints of ice cream, and then the dry ice on top.  Then we put that cooler inside a hard igloo cooler with the top loose and placed the whole thing in the trunk.   At the end of the trip- 14 1/2 hr. drive, the ice cream was frozen solid, along with the ice packs, and the dry ice was maybe 1/3 gone.  I put the ice cream in the freezer and closed the cooler back up.  The next morning the dry ice was still about 1/3 left, the reg ice pack still cold but not frozen anymore, and by that night the dry ice was gone and the ice pack totally thawed.  But the cooler had a ton of dead space.  If I had filled it with plastic bags or more towels it might have lasted longer.

I never dealt with dry ice before so it was a first for me.  I brought my own gloves to pick out the dry ice from the Publix cooler and bagged it myself at the check out counter.  Hubby was very nervous and didn't want to deal with it.  I used to go to frat parties back in the day and we put dry ice in the punch cups we drank out of and the engineering students would handle small chunks with their bare hands.  So  I have no fear of it.  But I do have great respect for the damage it can do and read a lot about it before this venture.  So in the trunk or outside is best.

Don't know if this helps, but thought I would throw it out here.

 

[RossCoe]

Hmmmmm, alcoholic ice cream,,,,,,, I bet that would go good in a beer float.

Guy

  They have a chocolate bourbon   How does that mix sound??

 

[DannyB1954]

 but if the dry ice container was well insulated it should last a pretty good time, possibly several days. 

If you are blowing vehicle air into the container it will have zero insulation. It will be like having the air conditioner running in a room with all the windows open and a fan blowing in hot air. You are effectively trying to make your vehicle into a cooler. You can cool a glass of water with an ice cube. Now  try cooling a bathtub full of water with an ice cube.  If the volume of the vehicle was 10  times that of the cooler, the dry ice would last less than 1/10 the amount of time it does in the cooler. The heat load in the vehicle will be far greater than 10 times the heat load is in the cooler.