Ammonia (NH3) is one of the most commonly produced industrial chemicals in the United States. It is used in industry and commerce, and also exists naturally in humans and in the environment. Ammonia is essential for many biological processes and serves as a precursor for amino acid and nucleotide synthesis. In the environment, ammonia is part of the nitrogen cycle and is produced in soil from bacterial processes. Ammonia is also produced naturally from decomposition of organic matter, including plants, animals, and animal wastes.
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About 80% of the ammonia produced by industry is used in agriculture as fertilizer. Ammonia is also used as a refrigerant gas, for purification of water supplies, and in the manufacture of plastics, explosives, textiles, pesticides, dyes and other chemicals. It is found in many household and industrial-strength cleaning solutions. Household ammonia cleaning solutions are manufactured by adding ammonia gas to water and can be between 5 and 10% ammonia. Ammonia solutions for industrial use may be concentrations of 25% or higher and are corrosive.
Most people are exposed to ammonia from inhalation of the gas or vapors. Since ammonia exists naturally and is also present in cleaning products, exposure may occur from these sources. The widespread use of ammonia on farms and in industrial and commercial locations also means that exposure can occur from an accidental release or from a deliberate terrorist attack.
Anhydrous ammonia gas is lighter than air and will rise, so that generally it dissipates and does not settle in low-lying areas. However, in the presence of moisture (such as high relative humidity), the liquefied anhydrous ammonia gas forms vapors that are heavier than air. These vapors may spread along the ground or into low-lying areas with poor airflow where people may become exposed.
Ammonia interacts immediately upon contact with available moisture in the skin, eyes, oral cavity, respiratory tract, and particularly mucous surfaces to form the very caustic ammonium hydroxide. Ammonium hydroxide causes the necrosis of tissues through disruption of cell membrane lipids (sanctification) leading to cellular destruction. As cell proteins break down, water is extracted, resulting in an inflammatory response that causes further damage.
Inhalation: Ammonia is irritating and corrosive. Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia in air causes immediate burning of the nose, throat and respiratory tract. This can cause bronchiolar and alveolar edema, and airway destruction resulting in respiratory distress or failure. Inhalation of lower concentrations can cause coughing, and nose and throat irritation. Ammonia's odor provides adequate early warning of its presence, but ammonia also causes olfactory fatigue or adaptation, reducing awareness of one's prolonged exposure at low concentrations.
Children exposed to the same concentrations of ammonia vapor as adults may receive a larger dose because they have greater lung surface area-to-body weight ratios and increased minute volumes-to-weight ratios. In addition, they may be exposed to higher concentrations than adults in the same location because of their shorter height and the higher concentrations of ammonia vapor initially found near the ground.
Skin or eye contact: Exposure to low concentrations of ammonia in air or solution may produce rapid skin or eye irritation. Higher concentrations of ammonia may cause severe injury and burns. Contact with concentrated ammonia solutions such as industrial cleaners may cause corrosive injury including skin burns, permanent eye damage or blindness. The full extent of eye injury may not be apparent for up to a week after the exposure. Contact with liquefied ammonia can also cause frostbite injury.
Ingestion: Exposure to high concentrations of ammonia from swallowing ammonia solution results in corrosive damage to the mouth, throat and stomach. Ingestion of ammonia does not normally result in systemic poisoning.
There is no antidote for ammonia poisoning, but ammonia's effects can be treated, and most people recover. Immediate decontamination of skin and eyes with copious amounts
Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is commonly used for temporary refrigeration as CO2 does not have a liquid state at normal atmospheric pressure and sublimates directly from the solid state to the gas state. It is used primarily as a cooling agent, but is also used in fog machines at theatres for dramatic effects. Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue (other than incidental frost from moisture in the atmosphere). It is useful for preserving frozen foods (such as ice cream) where mechanical cooling is unavailable.
Dry ice sublimates at 194.7 K (−78.5 °C; −109.2 °F) at Earth atmospheric pressure. This extreme cold makes the solid dangerous to handle without protection from frostbite injury. While generally not very toxic, the outgassing from it can cause hypercapnia (abnormally elevated carbon dioxide levels in the blood) due to buildup in confined locations.
An ice cream cart
The most common use of dry ice is to preserve food,[1] using non-cyclic refrigeration.
Dry ice in water
It is frequently used to package items that must remain cold or frozen, such as ice cream or biological samples, in the absence of availability or practicality of mechanical cooling.
Dry ice is critical in the deployment of some vaccines, which require storage at ultra-cold temperatures along their supply line.[17]
Dry ice can be used to flash-freeze food[18] or laboratory biological samples,[19] carbonate beverages,[18] make ice cream,[20] solidify oil spills[21] and stop ice sculptures and ice walls from melting.
Dry ice can be used to arrest and prevent insect activity in closed containers of grains and grain products, as it displaces oxygen, but does not alter the taste or quality of foods. For the same reason, it can prevent or retard food oils and fats from becoming rancid.
When dry ice is placed in water, sublimation is accelerated, and low-sinking, dense clouds of smoke-like fog are created. This is used in fog machines, at theatres, haunted house attractions, and nightclubs for dramatic effects. Unlike most artificial fog machines, in which fog rises like smoke, fog from dry ice hovers near the ground.[14] Dry ice is useful in theatre productions that require dense fog effects.[22] The fog originates from the bulk water into which the dry ice is placed, and not from atmospheric water vapor (as is commonly assumed).[23]
It is occasionally used to freeze and remove warts.[24] However, liquid nitrogen performs better in this role, since it is colder so requires less time to act, and less pressure.[25] Dry ice has fewer problems with storage, since it can be generated from compressed carbon dioxide gas as needed.[25]
In plumbing, dry ice is used to cut off water flow to pipes to allow repairs to be made without shutting off water mains. Pressurised liquid CO2 is forced into a jacket wrapped around a pipe, which in turn causes the water inside to freeze and block the pipe. When the repairs are done, the jacket is removed and the ice plug melts, allowing the flow to resume. This technique can be used on pipes up to 4 inches or 100 mm in diameter.[26]
Dry ice can be used as bait to trap mosquitoes, bedbugs, and other insects, due to their attraction to carbon dioxide.[27]
It can be used to exterminate rodents. This is done by dropping pellets into rodent tunnels in the ground and then sealing off the entrance, thus suffocating the animals as the dry ice sublimates.[28]
Tiny dry ice pellets can be used to fight fire by both cooling fuel and suffocating the fire by excluding oxygen.[29]
The extreme temperature of dry ice can cause viscoelastic materials to change to glass phase. Thus, it is useful for removing many types of pressure sensitive adhesives.
industrial
Dry ice blasting used for cleaning a rubber mold
Dry ice blasting used for cleaning electrical installations
Dry ice can be used for loosening asphalt floor tiles or car sound deadening material, making them easy to prise off,[30] as well as freezing water in valveless pipes to enable repair.[31]
One of the largest mechanical uses of dry ice is blast cleaning. Dry ice pellets are shot from a nozzle with compressed air, combining the power of the speed of the pellets with the action of the sublimation. This can remove residues from industrial equipment. Examples of materials removed include ink, glue, oil, paint, mold and rubber. Dry ice blasting can replace sandblasting, steam blasting, water blasting or solvent blasting. The primary environmental residue of dry ice blasting is the sublimed CO2, thus making it a useful technique where residues from other blasting techniques are undesirable.[32] Recently, blast cleaning has been introduced as a method of removing smoke damage from structures after fires.
Dry ice is also useful for the de-gassing of flammable vapours from storage tanks — the sublimation of dry ice pellets inside an emptied and vented tank causes an outrush of CO2 that carries with it the flammable vapours.[33]
The removal and fitting of cylinder liners in large engines requires the use of dry ice to chill and thus shrink the liner so that it freely slides into the engine block. When the liner then warms up, it expands, and the resulting interference fit holds it tightly in place. Similar procedures may be used in fabricating mechanical assemblies with a high resultant strength, replacing the need for pins, keys or welds.[34]
It is also useful as a cutting fluid.
Scientific
In laboratories, a slurry of dry ice in an organic solvent is a useful freezing mixture for cold chemical reactions and for condensing solvents in rotary evaporators.[35] Dry ice and acetone forms a cold bath of −78 °C (−108 °F; 195 K), which can be used for instance to prevent thermal runaway in a Swern oxidation.
The process of altering cloud precipitation can be done with the use of dry ice.[36] It was widely used in experiments in the US in the 1950s and early 1960s before it was replaced by silver iodide.[36] Dry ice has the advantage of being relatively cheap and completely non-toxic.[36] Its main drawback is the need to be delivered directly into the supercooled region of clouds being seeded.[36]
The Freons are colorless, odorless, nonflammable, noncorrosive gases or liquids of low toxicity that were introduced as refrigerants in the 1930s; they also proved useful as propellants for aerosols and in numerous technical applications.
