Is dry ice colder than (regular) ice?

Question

And, if anyone knows where this question is from, virtual cookies.

Side note: Does anyone know if/what is colder than dry ice?

Answer 1

Yes, at atmospheric pressure CO2 solid sublimes to a vapor at about -40 deg C.

Answer 2

This question is worded in such a way that the correct answer is: not necessarily. Dry ice is pretty cold, but there is no reason frozen water cannot be as cold or colder. Dry ice is at least -78 C because it has to be to be solid (at least at one atmosphere of pressure), but temperatures in Antarctica have gone down to at least -89 C, possibly (and probably) lower (that's some cold ice!) In a lab, you can cool ice or dry ice down to near absolute zero by immersing in liquid helium.

That said, dry ice that came with your frozen steaks will be colder than ice cubes that just came from your freezer (about -18).

Answer 3

at room temperature, dry ice is colder than water ice. reason is, the "ice" melts or sublimes at a particular temperature until all the material has undergone a phase change. Dry Ice sublimes at -78 C while water ice melts at 0 C. So leaving dry ice on a counter top vs leaving water ice on the same counter top, dry ice will be colder.

on the other hand, both materials can be cooled to below -78 C in which case they could certainly be the same temp.

Answer 4

Yes, carbon dioxide freezes well below the temp that water does --- -78.5.

Of course that doesn't mean you COULDN'T cool water ice down that cold or colder. You just usually don't see that.

Answer to bonus question: liquid helium, liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen, and lots of other stuff can be used to get temps much lower than dry ice.

Answer 5

Yes, very much so. It is so cold it'll burn your skin if you touch it long enough. Dry ice is carbon dioxide that is compressed and then chilled. When it melts it goes back to it's natural state, a gas without changing to a liquid first as water normally does if heated. This fact is what makes it useful for packing frozen food for transportation like fish.

Answer 6

Where is all this ignorance coming from? Steam is gaseous water (vapor). Steam is an invisible gas. Every year people DIE because they walk into a jet of steam because they do not see it. When steam cools off, it can condense. The droplets of condensation scatter (white) light. This is what clouds, fog, and your breath on a cold day is. The air contains water vapor. Hot air can hold more, cold air holds less. We call this "humidity". The air around a block of dry ice is cooled down by the dry ice. The cooler air can hold less water vapor. The excess water condenses into droplets. NOT STEAM.

Answer 7

When heat is taken away from water and its temp. drops, it changes its state of liquid to state of solid at 32F. We call it regular ice. When heat is taken away from carbon dioxide gas, it becomes solid at very low temp, around -70F. So obviously it is much colder than regular ice.

Answer 8

yea