Carbon dioxide

Solid carbon dioxide is used quite extensively to refrigerate dairy products, meat products, frozen foods, and other perishable foods while in transit. It is also used as a cooling agent in many industrial processes, such as grinding heat-sensitive materials, rubber tumbling, cold-treating metals, shrink fitting of machinery parts, vacuum cold traps, and so on. Gaseous carbon dioxide is used to carbonate soft drinks, for pH control in water treatment, in chemical processing, as a food preservative, as an inert blanket in chemical and food processing and metal welding, as a growth stimulant for plant life, for hardening molds and cores in foundries, and in pneumatic devices. Liquid carbon dioxide is used as an expendable refrigerant for freezing and chilling food products; for low-temperature testing of aviation, missile, and electronic components; for stimulation of oil and gas wells; for rubber tumbling; and for controlling chemical reactions. Liquid carbon dioxide is also used as a fire extinguishing agent in portable and built-in fire extinguishing systems.
Carbon dioxide,CO2, also known as carbonic anhydride and carbonic acid gas, is a colorless,odorless gas that liquifies at -65 °C(-86 OF) and solidifies in dry ice at -78.2 °C(-107 OF). It is soluble in water,alcohol, and most alkaline solutions. In a relatively slow reaction,carbon dioxide hydrates in water to become carbonic acid and is corrosive. In petroleum production, the velocity of the carbon dioxide gas can increase the corrosion rate to very high levels,with the presence of salts becoming unimportant. Carbon dioxide is used in preparing carbonated beverages, fire extinguishers, dry ice refrigerants,and as a raw material in the production of sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate using the Solvay procedure.