How to make dry ice at home

Obtaining dry ice using fire extinguisher

How can you ob­tain dry ice at home? Watch this video to find out!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Per­form this ex­per­i­ment only with adult su­per­vi­sion.

Reagents and equip­ment

  • car­bon diox­ide(CO₂) fire ex­tin­guish­er;
  • cloth bag;
  • warm gloves;
  • glass bowl;
  • boil­ing wa­ter.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

Put a cloth bag over a CO₂ fire ex­tin­guish­er's noz­zle. Be sure to pro­tect your hands with warm gloves. Re­move the safe­guard and press the lever. Dry ice will pre­cip­i­tate in­side the bag's sur­face. Pour the dry ice into a glass bowl and add boil­ing wa­ter. Ob­serve the emerg­ing flood of white steam.

Process de­scrip­tion

This fire ex­tin­guish­er con­tains high­ly-pres­sur­ized liq­uid car­bon diox­ide. When re­leased, the car­bon diox­ide tran­si­tions from its liq­uid to its gaseous state, in­creas­ing in vol­ume by 400–500 times and sharply de­creas­ing in tem­per­a­ture to -78,5°C (-97.6 ° F). The car­bon diox­ide set­tles on the walls of the bag cov­er­ing the noz­zle, and the re­sult­ing dry ice can be used in oth­er ex­per­i­ments.

Try it