History
A
1955 US patent was issued for an invention comprising “…bombarding a
finished surface area with virtually discrete particles of ice
flakes….”. The blast media were ice particles made from freezing water
[1].
No physical device was evident from this invention and the concept
remained as such.
A
“Blasting Machine Utilizing Sublimable Particles” was patented in 1955
[2].
The blast media were pelletized dry ice and hence the process became known
as dry ice or CO2
blast.
Interest in ice blast renewed in the late 80’s as evidenced by numerous
patents filed on the subject. The technology was based on adding cryogenic
features in a natural progression from sand blasting. Without proper
understanding of the static and dynamic property of ice particles, such
implementation invariably led to ice particle agglomeration and subsequent
ice blockages.
National
Defence in Canada determined the
feasibility of ice blasting for cleaning in confined spaces such as inside
ships. This effort led to the first operating commercial ice blast machine
in 1992. These ice blast machines had complex operating system controls
Variation of the same design claiming improvements appeared in the patent
literature. However, they were fundamentally the same: some mechanical
intervention to “size” the ice particles and the use of cold air to
fluidize them. Ice blast machines were still considered cryogenic systems
and required lengthy cool down from a warm start. During this period,
other methods of ice blast were introduced elsewhere: atomized water
frozen by cryogenic fluid in a supersonic nozzle for blasting and small
water droplets frozen by liquid nitrogen for blasting. They relied on
cryogenic fluid at very low temperatures and could not be easily scaled up
to meet robust industrial requirements.
In
1996 Universal Ice Blast Inc. took a drastic change in the method of producing and
fluidizing ice particles. The Company later produced a working
model, which with minor improvements still remains the state of the art
ice blast system to date [3].
Figure 1: Commercial IceBlast
machine.
Read further >>
[1] Courts, E.J., 1995, Means and Methods for Cleaning and polishing Automobiles, US Patent no. 2,699,403
[2] Fong, C.C. et al, 1983, Blasting Machine Utilizing Sublimable Particles, US Patent no. 4,389,820.
[3] Visaisouk, S., Fisher, N., 1999, Apparatus and Method for Continuous Ice Blasting, US Patent no. 6,001,000.