How To Melt Dry Ice Fast: The 6 Fastest Ways

If you want to dispose of some dry ice quickly, what are some of the fastest ways to melt dry ice?

Dry ice is -109ºF (-78ºC) and it sublimates (or turns from solid into gas). If you've got a chunk of dry ice that you want to get rid of how can you melt dry ice fast?

To melt dry ice fast use gloves and a hammer to break it into small pieces. Then submerge the dry ice in a large bucket of hot or boiling water. If getting rid of dry ice inside make sure you're in a well ventilated space.

In this article will look at the variety of different ways that you can melt, or sublimate, dry ice as quickly as possible so you don't have to wait around for hours until it completely disappears.

You should never leave dry ice unattended as it's so cold that it can burn peoples skin. So getting rid of it quickly and safely can be important and luckily it's easy to do.

Here are some of the ways to make dry ice disappear as quickly as possible.

1. Break It Into Tiny Pieces

What Is Dry Ice?

One of the easiest and fastest ways to make dry ice melt, or turn into gas, is to break it into tiny pieces.

By breaking dry ice into tiny pieces you increase its surface area. The larger the surface area the more of the dry ice is exposed to the warmer outside air and the faster it will melt.

Make sure you use gloves and wear safety goggles when doing this because dry ice is so cold that it can burn your skin and if a piece gets in your eye it can blind you.

Where are your safety gear and then grab a hammer and break up the bits of dry ice into as small pieces as possible.

The smaller the better. Crushed dry ice will melt much faster than larger chunks of dry ice so if you want it to be gone really quickly make it into really small pieces.

2. Put It In Boiling Water

Making dry ice melt as quickly as possible is very similar to making regular ice melt as quickly as possible. Do you want to expose it to as much heat as possible.

Get a big pot of water and bring it to boil on the stove. Put the dry ice in leaving the stove on so that he is continually being added.

The boiling water will quickly make the dry ice turn from a solid into a gas and disappear.

When doing this you want to make sure that you've got the windows open and that there is good airflow and circulation in the room.

If you don't have proper air circulation then the carbon dioxide that the dry ice lets off can actually be dangerous and lead to not enough oxygen in the air. Learn how dry ice can kill you if you're not careful.

3. Put It In a Bucket of Warm Water

If you don't want to go to the effort of boiling a pot of water, or if you would prefer to dispose of your dry ice outside, then another good method for making dry ice melt quickly is to put it in a warm bowl or bucket of water.

Water is 32 times more effective than air at transferring heat. So putting dry ice in warm water will make it melt much much faster than simply leaving it outside.

Overtime the dry ice will cool down the water end it can even completely freeze the water which will slow down the melting process.

So you may want to discard the water as it gets cold and top up with warm water as needed.

Putting dry ice into a bucket of warm water will also give you a really cool fog effect for about 10 to 15 minutes. So this is a really fun way to get rid of dry ice quickly.

4. Throw It In Your Pool

If you've got a large amount of dry ice and you don't have a bowl or bucket big enough then you can just go ahead and throw it in your pool.

Water transfers heat much more effectively than air and even if your pool feels cold to you remember it's still extremely hot compared to the dry ice.

I've done a full article on how long dry ice lasts in water if you want to know approximately how long it'll take to get rid of dry ice using this method.

This will also make your pool fog up and look really cool.

5. Leave It Outside In The Sun With Good Airflow

For an easy way to get rid of dry ice fairly quickly is to simply leave it outside in direct sunlight and ideally in the wind.

The woman in the sunlight will cause the dry ice to sublimate quickly and the windier it is the faster it will turn into gas.

Disposing of dry ice outside is also a good idea because if you're doing it in an enclosed space it can actually be dangerous because of the build up of carbon dioxide.

But if you're doing it outside the carbon dioxide will simply blow away and it's not a big deal.

It's generally not a good idea to leave dry ice unattended outside especially if there are kids around.

If you are leaving dry ice unattended then I would recommend putting it inside a box that allows the gas to escape but protects people from accidentally touching it and burning themselves.

6. Point a Fan at It

To dry ice room temperature air is extremely hot.

Imagine blowing hot air from a hairdryer on to regular ice. It's going to make that ice melt quicker right?

You can use the same principle to get rid of dry ice quickly. Leave your dry ice out and exposed and point a fan at it.

The warm air blowing over the dry ice will make it turn to gas much quicker than leaving it with no air flow.