What is dry ice blasting?
It is a process in which a blasting gun fires dry ice particles (rice-sized) at supersonic speed to impact and clean a surface. The particles are accelerated by compressed air, just as with other blasting systems. Upon impact the dry ice sublimates (goes from a solid to a gas without passing through a liquid phase). The substrate (surface) is left free of mold spores. There are three phases in the dry ice blasting process. Energy transfer works when dry ice pellets are propelled out of the blasting gun at supersonic speed and impact the surface. The energy transfer helps to knock off the contaminant with little or no damage to the surface. Micro-thermal shock occurs when the freezing effect of the dry ice pellets hitting the contaminant creates a micro-thermal shock (caused by the dry ice temperature of -79 C) between the surface contaminant and the substrate. This phase isnt as much a factor for removal of mold as it is with resins, oils, waxes, food particles and other contaminants.
