Hey guys! We are back in the lab with a
10 pound block of dry ice to answer the
question: what does dry ice do in a vacuum
chamber? The request for this experiment
came in the comments from Jason Gamer.
Thanks for your question, Jason. I'm sending $25
your way. Now dry ice is solid carbon
dioxide with a temperature of about
-190 degrees fahrenheit but that's
at sea level. If we put it in a vacuum
chamber and suck the air out, the
pressure changes and the properties of
the dry ice change as well.
Now people ask all the time, "Where do you
even get dry ice?" I just went down to the
grocery store and picked this up for about
thirteen dollars. They usually have a
container near the front of the store
where they keep it. You can get some as
long as you're over 18.
Okay, Cool! Let's jump right in. *muffled* Gloves make this hard to work with. Being safe
is so restrictive. Ooh, good stuff. Hey just a thought will
your tongue stick to dry ice if you lick it?
Apparently not but it is a little fizzy.
My tongues a little cold *Laughs* Ok so one problem
guys, this isn't gonna fit in there, we're gonna have
smash it up a little bit, so let's grab a
hammer, and go to work.
Oh.
You think I could karate chop this in half?
Ahhh... *Grant is proud of himself* WOOOOOOO
It was a lot harder than I thought and it actually
did hurt quite a bit but WE DID IT! We
did it.
THAT is how you break dry ice! There we go,
alright cool
we've got a few chunks of dry ice in there. Listen to that...
Our dry ice is having a private moment... Look
at the way the vapor is falling out and filling
up the container. Right now what it's
doing is pushing the oxygen out and filling
the container with carbon dioxide. So we got
a few good chunks of dry ice in our
vacuum chamber, let's go ahead and put on
the lid, close the valve, get this thing
fired up. Let's see what happens.
Alright so it actually is pulling vacuum
pressure. It's probably not the
smartest idea to be using a glass
container because the dry ice can actually
cool down the glass of the bottom while
the glass of the top stays warm. So that
creates a difference in temperature that
could expose the glass to shattering and
imploding. So, this is a little bit dangerous. From
here I can see the gauge is probably
around 23 inches of mercury which is
about as low as that vacuum pump can pull.
I'm going to close this valve and turn
off the vacuum pump. Watch the gauge as I do.
Now it's about 22 inches of mercury
but as the dry ice continues to vaporize
that carbon dioxide you can see the
container actually starts repressurizing
and the gauge is dropping in pressure. So just to
go a little bit further, let's release
the pressure. Let's add a little bit of
warm water to get this thing vaping a
little bit and then turn the vacuum chamber
back on. Let's open the valve in 3,2,1
Sweet dry ice vapor. Actually smells like
vinegar and I think that's because of the
proto putty. *laughs* I just poured some hot water
it's about the hottest I could get it out of
my tap, and pouring it will actually help
insulate the bottom of the glass as well
and reduce the chances of it imploding on
us
oh that's cool
oh man, who doesn't love dry ice?
Surprisingly I can actually breathe that quite well I
mean I thought I'd be seeing my lungs
like if you put right into a balloon and
breathe it but I could breathe just fine
Let's go ahead and add the rest of it. So we
now have hot water dry ice in our vacuum
chamber so let's go ahead and put the
lid on and see what happens when turn on
this time. This valve open this valve
closed you can see if I actually try to
hold this container close the lid will
actually start popping up there's
nothing I can do about it. If I open the
exhaust valve we can actually get
dry ice vapor... shooting out- that looks cool!
that's right out of the movies like a
busted pipe line or something
ok let's close that off and turn on the
vacuum. 3... 2...1...
oh and we actually are pulling vaccuum
pressure, that's surprising to me
because with how much vapors coming off
I wonder if that would kinda neutralize,
if it's equalize. But we're at about 13 inches of
mercury right now and steadily increasing so
there used to be a really dense thick
white fog and that has been reduced the
point where i can actually see the dry
blocks inside. There still is a white
vapor but that is slowly being pulled
out if you look closely you can even see
a little bit of that paper flowing down
the tube here to the vacuum pump. I'm not
exactly sure how good it is to be
running carbon dioxide and water vapor
into a vacuum pump for you guys it's for
science
alright so update guys were down to about
20 inches of mercury now let's just flip
the valve open let all the air back in
and see what happens now you can hear
bubbling again that's interesting
we tried a massive amount of dry ice in a
container what would happen if we just
tried a very small amount of dry ice? Let's
break off a small chunk, throw it into our pressure
cooker and just see what happens there
Throw that in, set the vacuum on... the gage is rising, rising
fast; that looks good. Yeah that's a lot faster than when we
had all that dry ice in there. We're
almost at as far as this thing can go right now
22 inches of mercury oh wow look the dry ice is
shaking a little bit like vibrating
look's really nervous right now. If I
grab this lid and shake it there's no
way that's coming off but interestingly
enough like the dry ice isn't doing much
in there it's still sublimating like it
normally would but I don't know if it's
sublimating any faster but I really have
no way to gauge that so yeah dry ice in a
vacuum is very anti-climatic nothing's
really happening
so there you have a guy's a very fun and
very cool experiment with dry ice in a
vacuum chamber and thanks again to Jason
gamer for a question this experiment. If
any of you have experiments want to see
me try, post your suggestions down
below thanks for joining me for this
video, I'll be looking for the next one
talk to you then.
*Vibrating Noise* Excuse you