Cryolux Dry Ice Packs Activation & Application Instructions

Dry ice packs are a sandwich of plastic and non woven textile with FDA approved post-treated Sodium Polyacrylate at the core that activates upon hydration (when exposed to water). Cryolux manufactures dry ice packs in both reusable and disposable variants. The reusable dry ice packs have plastic bonded on both sides which give it the reusability whilst the disposable ice pack has plastic on one side and non woven textile on the other side. These sheets come in the dehydrated form. In order to achieve optimum performance, it’s important that these ice packs are well hydrated.

Step 1 – To hydrate the ice pack, it’s important the water is clean. If you are doing this in a home set up, please clean your sink and rinse out traces of any dishwashing liquid. Then fill the sink with water.

Step 2 – Give the dry ice wrap a gentle scrunch underwater to release any air bubbles within the ice pack for faster hydration.

Step 3 – Continue with this process for the rest of the ice packs and stack them one above the other.

Step 4 – Let the dry ice pack soak for 10 to 15 minutes and rotate the hydrated ones from the bottom to the top. You will find that they are optimally hydrated and ready to use when each of the cells are full and are incapable of taking any more water. If you do find some lazy cells,  just give them a gentle massage.

Step 5 – You can now remove your Cryolux dry ice packs and pat them dry with a towel or just give them a good shake to get rid of any excess water on the surface.

Step 6 – Your Cryolux ice sheets are now ready to freeze or heat and use. If you are freezing the disposable dry ice sheets, It’s important to face all the dry ice packs with the plastic side facing down and the non woven side face up.

How to use dry ice packs as heat packs? | How to heat an ice pack?

It is faster to heat them in a microwave. You can just wrap them in a towel or a moist paper towel and microwave them for increments of 30 seconds to ensure you don’t burn yourself. 

How to freeze a dry ice pack? Some dry ice usage tips.

Turn your freezer down to the lowest temperature. Most domestic freezers go to -21°C. The colder you can freeze these ice packs, the longer they will last.

Now you can place these ice packs and stack them one above the other. If you are running out of room, feel free to roll them up and freeze them because they can flex when they are frozen. We recommend you to freeze them for 12 to 18 hours before use. You can also mix these frozen dry ice packs with dry ice in your cooler. When you are freezing the disposable dry ice packs it's important that you lay the ice packs one above the other, with the plastic side facing down, so no two ice packs have the textile material touching each other when it's being frozen because the moisture in the textile side tends to freeze together and stick, making it hard to take them apart if you need to use them individually.

How much dry ice to put in a cooler?

We recommend that you use one sheet for every 6 liters of space that you need to keep cool. If you have a lot of room left in your cooler, we recommend that you add a few extra sheets in there to reduce the air space. A standard lunch cooler bag would take 1 to 1.5 ice sheets. A medium foam cooler would take around 3 to 4 sheets of Cryolux dry ice packs. If you are going to be transporting the cooler filled with your produce from point A to point B and you won’t be opening the box at all midway, you can get away with filling only 30% of the volume of the icebox with dry ice packs. If you are going to be opening the cooler or ice box during the journey, we recommend using more ice packs depending on the quality of the ice box. We suggest that you go through our ice retention tips article (find it in the Knowledge Hub section) which will give you an outline of how best to pack your cooler.