No, it's not, in general. Dry ice cleaning causes only a very small temperature change, which does not go beyond the limit typically required by products in general.

The hotter the mold surface is, the larger the temperature deviation becomes. This leads to a greater thermal shock, thereby accelerating the speed of dry ice cleaning. However, this thermal shock acts only on the surface, and thus the overall temperature of the mold does not decrease.

Many people believe that the ultra-low temperature of dry ice may cause an unintended deformation and damage to the target object, depending on its type. In reality, however, the dry ice pellets used here have a very low hardness of 2 Mohs, and thus such an event never happens. Also, one may think that a temperature deviation that occurs in the process may cause severe damage, especially to metallic and other objects that are known to be susceptible to heat and high temperatures. Despite a number of experiments and observations that have been conducted, however, such an event has never happened in practice. For example, this cleaner was applied to semiconductor wafers and 10-mm glass plates, but such an event did not happen as long as a high-pressure spray (about 10 bar) was not intensively concentrated on a single spot.

Given that dry ice tends to sublimate, these dry ice pellets also sublimate into the air, leaving nothing on the surface, and the separated pollutants are blown away by the high-pressure wind.

Dry ice pallets quick-freeze pollutants, thereby causing a number of cracks to form in them.

The workings of dry ice cleaning are not significantly different from those of other existing cleaners, except that dry ice particles are sprayed along with high-pressure air to hit the surface of the target object.

Most cleaning media, such as sand, beads, and water, give rise to secondary pollutants after being used, but dry ice sublimates immediately when it hits the surface and thus does not incur any waste treatment costs. Also, unlike sand, grit, or beads, dry ice does not damage the target mold, which means that the service time of the mold can be extended, and the production cost can be reduced.

Dry ice pellets are stored in a specially designed storage container. Depending on the surrounding climate, they can be stored for at least five days and up to 12 days. Once the container is opened for use, the pellets can be used for about three days from the time of opening.

A dry ice cleaner works similarly to the existing sandblasters or bead blasters except that it uses dry ice as a cleaning medium instead of sand or beads and thus allows for different cleaning operations from other types of cleaners. Dry ice pellets are sprayed by high-pressure air at high speed (4-11 Bar) from the dry ice cleaner and collide with the surface of the target object so that the object surface is then subjected to the following effects due to the cold energy of dry ice: A. Ultra-low temperature (-78.7℃) thermal shock B. Expansion by sublimation C. Sandblasting effects caused by pallets particles D. Wind pressure. As a result, foreign substances are separated from the surface of the target object and cleaned away. More specifically, the surface of the target object is quick-frozen, which leads to a temperature difference between the substrate and the surroundings. As a result, the surface rapidly becomes contracted, and a number of cracks are formed on it. Dry ice pellets then start to penetrate through these cracks inside the surface layer and expand about 800 times in volume, lifting up and separating the foreign substances. Therefore, nothing remains on the surface of the target object. The harness of dry ice particles is around 2 Mohs, and thus these dry ice pellets never wear or damage the surface of the target object as sand, grit, or glass particles do.

Dry ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide produced by pressurizing liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2) at low temperatures.