Dry Ice - Safety

Safety

Prolonged exposure to dry ice can cause severe skin damage through frostbites, and the fog produced may also hinder attempts to withdraw from contact in a safe manner. Because it sublimates into large quantities of carbon dioxide gas, which could pose a danger of hypercapnia, dry ice should only be exposed to open air in a well-ventilated environment. For this reason, dry ice is assigned the S-phrase S9 in the context of laboratory safety. Industrial dry ice may contain contaminants that make it unsafe for direct contact with foodstuffs.

Although dry ice is not classified as a dangerous substance by the European Union, or as a hazardous material by the United States Department of Transportation for ground transportation, when shipped by air or water, it is regulated as a dangerous good and IATA packing instruction 954 (IATA PI 954) requires that it be labeled specially, including a diamond-shaped black-and white label, UN 1845. Also, arrangements must be in place to ensure adequate ventilation so that pressure build-up does not rupture the packaging. The Federal Aviation Administration in the US allows airline passengers to carry up to 2 kg of dry ice in carry-on baggage and 2.3 kg in checked baggage, when used to refrigerate perishables.

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