Dry Ice Experiments and Keeping Ice Cream Cold While Camping Overnight

Ice Cream and Apple pie goes together like Apple pie and ice cream and would make for an excellent desert on a camping trip. The apple pie would be cooked on the fire, by wrapping it in aluminum foil. But how to keep the cream cold? From past experience I have learnt placing ice around it will not stop it from melting. This is because most of the cooling power from ice occurs when it is transforming from the solid state to the liquid. (While it is melting). This occurs at 0c. Ice cream, containing 'solids' and sugar melts at a lower temperature. It should be kept at freezer temperature of -18c. So, how to can you keep ice cream at this lower temperature while on an overnight camping trip? Dry Ice is frozen CO2, it sublimates directly into the gas state at -78c (-109F). Dry ice can be used to keep ice cream frozen, and this project sets out to do so as and will also try a few 'CO2 experiments' along the way.

Dry Ice (Frozen CO2)

Ice Cream

2 Kg of dry ice was purchased in a polystyrene container (with a lose fitting lid so gas can escape). As the dry ice did not take up all the room, scrunched up newspaper was used to take up the extra space. This assists in keeping the dry ice frozen as long as possible. A 2-liter tub of ice cream was purchase and placed next to the dry ice. At the camping ground the container was placed in the shade away from direct sunshine to assist with its longevity. The dry ice lasted longer than expected and there was still a little left after 36 hours of being in the polystyrene container - autumn temperatures probably helped with this.

As an experiment, a lump of dry ice was added to a bowl of hot water. This resulted in the bowl 'smoking' for a while and looked quite spectacular. Leather gloves were worn while handling the dry ice for safely.

Three beers and a bottle of white wine were placed in the container near the dry ice. They were removed after 6 hours. The beer had cooled to -4c and the wine was partly frozen. Next time they would be place further away from the dry ice in the container, so they don't become so cold.

As an experiment, a lump of dry ice was placed directly into a cup of soda water. It cooled from 14c to 1c within 2 minutes. Some of the beverage was lost at the start when the beverage bubbling over. It is important not to drink dry ice to prevent physical harm.

A lump of dry ice was added into a latex glove and the end sealed. The glove inflated and after about 15 minutes popped.

I had read that if dry ice was place in water and detergent and a piece of towel dragged across the top a large bubble would be created. I tried this experiment, but it resulted in a bowl of bubbles without a large one forming.

A spoon was placed against a large piece of dry ice. It hummed in a similar way to the 'Everything Is OK! Alarm'

How did the dry ice go at keeping the ice cream cold? When the ice cream was taken out it was rock hard. This was due to having the dry ice directly around it. The ice cream was then placed back into the container but away from the dry ice. When it was checked on in the morning it was like ice cream from the freezer.

I placed some water in a can and placed it next to the dry ice overnight. It had frozen solid in the morning. Another use of dry ice is to keep HO2 ice frozen longer. As dry ice is a lot cold than ice made from water it will keep the ice completely frozen until all the dry ice has sublimated (turned to gas). This will result in the ice in a cooler lasting longer than being just by itself, just remember to keep the lid lose so the gas from the sublimating solid CO2 can escape and have good ventilation.

Balancing a beer can has nothing to do with dry ice or ice cream but it's kind of cool. After drinking about 3/4's of a can of beer, you may be able to balance it on an edge.