Dry ice: Mission Halloween

How to make smoking pumpkin

Ex­plore sci­ence on Hal­loween!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.

Equip­ment and reagents

  • Hal­loween pump­kin;
  • dry ice;
  • glass;
  • hot wa­ter.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Place a glass of hot wa­ter in a jack-o’-lantern and add some dry ice. Smoke starts to bil­low out of the pump­kin. You’ve done it!

Pro­cess­ de­scrip­tion

Dry ice is car­bon diox­ide in a sol­id state at a tem­per­a­ture of -78.5 °C (-109 °F). When brought into con­tact with hot wa­ter, it starts to sub­lime vig­or­ous­ly. The re­sult­ing gas is cold enough to con­dense the wa­ter in the air, cre­at­ing dense white “fog.” It’s sure to get you into the Hal­loween spir­it!

Dry ice is dif­fi­cult to find – un­like the reagents in the MEL Chem­istry sets!

Try it