Supermarket chiller packs that don't freeze

[Pamela]

Amazon/Morrison's deliver frozen food with ice packs containing some
fluid which doesn't stay frozen in my freezer.

What liquid are they using and do ice packs have any use once the frozen
food has been delivered? Seems a shame to throw them away.

[charles]

In article <XnsAD32B94...@144.76.35.252>,

It is probably "Dry Ice". Frozen Carbon Dioxide. Your freeze°r would need
to beta -78°C to keep it frozen ;-)

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

[Chris Bacon]

On 22/05/2021 18:59, charles wrote:
> In article <XnsAD32B94...@144.76.35.252>,
> Pamela <pamela.priv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Amazon/Morrison's deliver frozen food with ice packs containing some
>> fluid which doesn't stay frozen in my freezer.
>

> It is probably "Dry Ice". Frozen Carbon Dioxide. Your freeze°r would need
> to beta -78°C to keep it frozen ;-)

It isn't. Carbon dioxide solid sublimates, there is no liquid phase at
normal temperature and pressure.

Perhaps Madame Pamela should try alt.morrisons.icepack.discussion.bollocks

[Clive Arthur]

On 22/05/2021 18:59, charles wrote:

> In article <XnsAD32B94...@144.76.35.252>,
> Pamela <pamela.priv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Amazon/Morrison's deliver frozen food with ice packs containing some
>> fluid which doesn't stay frozen in my freezer.
>
>> What liquid are they using and do ice packs have any use once the frozen
>> food has been delivered? Seems a shame to throw them away.
>
> It is probably "Dry Ice". Frozen Carbon Dioxide. Your freeze°r would need
> to beta -78°C to keep it frozen ;-)

Dry ice isn't a fluid.

Check your freezer temperature, it's probably faulty.

--
Cheers
Clive

[Pamela]

On 18:59 22 May 2021, charles said:

> In article <XnsAD32B94...@144.76.35.252>,
> Pamela <pamela.priv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Amazon/Morrison's deliver frozen food with ice packs containing
>> some fluid which doesn't stay frozen in my freezer.
>
>> What liquid are they using and do ice packs have any use once the
>> frozen food has been delivered? Seems a shame to throw them away.
>
> It is probably "Dry Ice". Frozen Carbon Dioxide. Your freeze°r
> would need to beta -78°C to keep it frozen ;-)

It's not dry ice. When the ice pack drops to domestic freezer
temperature, the content becomes a slightly viscous fluid.

It's a translucent pouch.

[Fredxx]

I would assume they use Sodium Polyacrylate to retain the water in a
gel. It's the chemical they use in nappies to absorb water and is
non-toxic if the pack is broken.

I would have thought they would be frozen at -18C or so. BICBW

I would be very tempted to get a thermometer to check. It's always good
to have one.

[newshound]

On 22/05/2021 18:12, Pamela wrote:

Most obvious use would be as ice packs. We used to get them with frozen
raw pet food, far more than I would ever normally want for domestic use
(might I suppose be useful if organising a large barbecue at a remote
site). I used to think they were the wrong sort of thing to go into
landfill, after removing the packaging the contents can be flushed down
the drain. (I'm sure they are non-toxic, otherwise they would not be
used with foodstuffs).

Havn't seen them for a while, all we have had recently has been dry ice
packets, but these are just empty polythene bags by the time they arrive.

[Max Demian]

On 22/05/2021 19:12, Chris Bacon wrote:
> On 22/05/2021 18:59, charles wrote:
>> In article <XnsAD32B94...@144.76.35.252>,
>>     Pamela <pamela.priv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Amazon/Morrison's deliver frozen food with ice packs containing some
>>> fluid which doesn't stay frozen in my freezer.
>>
>> It is probably "Dry Ice".  Frozen Carbon Dioxide. Your freeze°r would
>> need
>> to beta -78°C to keep it frozen ;-)
>
> It isn't. Carbon dioxide solid sublimates, there is no liquid phase at
> normal temperature and pressure.

I guess that's why it's called "dry ice".

--
Max Demian

[Paul]

You recharge freezer packs in the "chest freezer".

The regular refrigerator has to be set to a too aggressive
setting, to do freezer packs.

Only a "new" fridge makes rock hard ice cream, with
authority. When fridges get older, the chest freezer
is a good place to store the ice cream instead. Or, to charge
up a freezer pack.

You can store more energy in a freezer pack, if it
goes through a phase change. The phase change of your
particular freezer pack, is 3X better than water. The
"flat section" of the diagram for your freezer pack,
is three times wider than the plain-water diagram in
this article. That means the freezer pack might
"last twice as long" for some purpose.

https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/General_Chemistry/Book%3A_ChemPRIME_%28Moore_et_al.%29/10%3A_Solids_Liquids_and_Solutions/10.10%3A_Enthalpy_of_Fusion_and_Enthalpy_of_Vaporization

Paul

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Surely that would be rather dangerous to have around the place?
Frostbite and co 2 release in a confined area?


Brian

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"charles" <cha...@candehope.me.uk> wrote in message
news:5930b8f6...@candehope.me.uk...

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Lot of it about near the poles of Mars and on other planets and moons
further out of course.


Perhaps its antifreeze? Grin.

Brian

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"Max Demian" <max_d...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:Rtidne1jB6t68jT9...@brightview.co.uk...

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

No it could just be that the volume is far too large to freeze all in one
lump.

Brian

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"Clive Arthur" <cl...@nowaytoday.co.uk> wrote in message
news:s8bhk2$8f6$1...@dont-email.me...

[Chris J Dixon]

Paul wrote:

>The regular refrigerator has to be set to a too aggressive
>setting, to do freezer packs.
>
>Only a "new" fridge makes rock hard ice cream, with
>authority. When fridges get older, the chest freezer
>is a good place to store the ice cream instead. Or, to charge
>up a freezer pack.

That is an interesting take on the issue. My fridge-freezer is
now 13 years old, and the freezer compartment is still
maintaining the set -19 degrees. Isn't that cold enough for you?

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
ch...@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

[jon]

On Sun, 23 May 2021 08:34:22 +0100, Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) wrote:

> Surely that would be rather dangerous to have around the place?
> Frostbite and co 2 release in a confined area?
>
>
> Brian

It's ok if you have a risk assessment and a hard hat.

[Rod Speed]

Brian Gaff (Sofa) <bri...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote

> Surely that would be rather dangerous to have around the place?

Nope. Used a lot by portable icecream sellers etc.

> Frostbite and co 2 release in a confined area?

It isnt enough of a problem to matter. Cant
think of anyone accidentally killed that way.

[Peeler]

On Sun, 23 May 2021 19:27:43 +1000, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

>> Surely that would be rather dangerous to have around the place?
>
> Nope.

LOL Sick senile cretin!

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing the auto-contradicting senile cretin:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID: <XnsA97071CF43...@85.214.115.223>

[polygonum_on_google]

On Sunday, 23 May 2021 at 08:34:26 UTC+1, Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:
> Surely that would be rather dangerous to have around the place?
> Frostbite and co 2 release in a confined area?
>
>

The Federal Aviation Authority is perfectly happy with controlled dry ice quantities in aircraft.

https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_91-76A.pdf

Indeed, they recently issued revised guidelines for use with Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine which has stringent requirements for cold storage/transport. That lifted the quantity allowed - with some additional considerations.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Probably water and some sort of antifreeze


--
“Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of
a car with the cramped public exposure of 
an airplane.”

Dennis Miller

[Paul]

Chris J Dixon wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
>> The regular refrigerator has to be set to a too aggressive
>> setting, to do freezer packs.
>>
>> Only a "new" fridge makes rock hard ice cream, with
>> authority. When fridges get older, the chest freezer
>> is a good place to store the ice cream instead. Or, to charge
>> up a freezer pack.
>
> That is an interesting take on the issue. My fridge-freezer is
> now 13 years old, and the freezer compartment is still
> maintaining the set -19 degrees. Isn't that cold enough for you?
>
> Chris

Because a refrigerator has adjustments, Uncle Vinny
may have come over the house and randomly twisted
the knobs.

The chest freeze is much less likely to be mis-adjusted
that way. Leaving a lack of maintenance (frost buildup)
as a potential source of malfunction. Some people have
never seen the bottom of their chest freezer, since the
day they bought it. And the bottom of it is lined with
freezer-burned roasts :-) Chest freezers are like an
archeology dig ("hey, this one says roast dinosaur!").

Paul

[newshound]

Easy enough to do the sums. Breweries are potentially more dangerous
places, my mate brought a Victorian one back to life and after a couple
of decades the new factory inspector suggested he needed CO2 alarms. One
of the rooms can reach a concentration that you can "taste" if you open
a sliding door on the ground floor at certain stages in the process, but
everyone there knows the fireman's rule for CO2 extinguishers. If you
can taste it, get out. That space is a "special case", the door provides
access to the "drain" from which casks are filled, it is only open at
that stage and and with the door open the pooled gas rapidly flows out.
For the rest of the building, a calc for max generation and very
conservative assumptions about air changes showed there was no problem.
The factory inspector accepted it without a quibble.

[Paul]

Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote:
> Surely that would be rather dangerous to have around the place?
> Frostbite and co 2 release in a confined area?
>
>
> Brian
>

There aren't really a lot of "nice" cryogenic materials.

"Three die in dry-ice incident at Moscow pool party"

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51680049

"the partygoers had ordered 25kg of dry ice to cool
down the pool at the Devyaty Val (Ninth Wave) complex."

You don't really want the dry ice to change state, all
at once. Every gas has some place it would prefer to be,
and CO2 is heavier than air.

Paul

[Pamela]

On 13:04 23 May 2021, Chris Hogg said:

> On Sun, 23 May 2021 11:55:07 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
> <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>On 22/05/2021 20:04, Pamela wrote:
>>> On 18:59 22 May 2021, charles said:
>>>> In article <XnsAD32B94...@144.76.35.252>,
>>>> Pamela <pamela.priv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Amazon/Morrison's deliver frozen food with ice packs containing
>>>>> some fluid which doesn't stay frozen in my freezer.
>>>>
>>>>> What liquid are they using and do ice packs have any use once
>>>>> the frozen food has been delivered? Seems a shame to throw them
>>>>> away.
>>>>
>>>> It is probably "Dry Ice". Frozen Carbon Dioxide. Your freeze°r
>>>> would need to beta -78°C to keep it frozen ;-)
>>>
>>> It's not dry ice. When the ice pack drops to domestic freezer
>>> temperature, the content becomes a slightly viscous fluid.
>>>
>>> It's a translucent pouch.
>>>
>>Probably water and some sort of antifreeze
>

> Apparently many freezer packs use a high MW polyacrylate to raise
> the viscosity of the water, and prevent it freezing.
>
> This, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_pack
>
> "Gel packs are often made of non-toxic materials that will remain a
> slow-flowing gel, and therefore will not spill easily or cause
> contamination if the container breaks. Gel packs may be made by
> adding (Cellusize),[2] sodium polyacrylate, or vinyl-coated silica
> gel."
>
> The alternative is conventional 'antifreeze', ethylene glycol, but
> because of its potentially toxic properties, it has generally been
> phased out. This, from
> https://www.poison.org/articles/whats-inside-ice-packs-201
>
> "Some early reusable ice packs contained very toxic substances such
> as diethylene glycol or ethylene glycol (antifreeze). These types of
> ice packs have been recalled and are generally no longer available."
>
> The alternative explanation is that Pamela's freezer isn't working
> properly. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, she should
> check the temperature with a digital thermometer. If one isn't
> available, see if the ice pack goes solid in a friend's freezer.

The freezer is working well, as confirmed by a couple of thermometers
which showed -22C when I put it on fast freeze. The contents of
Amazon's chiller pack remained completely liquid.