Question: do you use dry ice to make the plastics

James Jennings answered on 15 Jun 2011:

Thats a great question- you are right in thinking that dry ice is made of carbon dioxide too, in its solid state. However, we don’t use it to turn into the state between a liquid and a gas. Instead, we buy bottles of carbon dioxide in its liquid form, connect it to a pump, and push the liquid into our reactors. We then heat the vessel up to turn the liquid into a supercritical fluid.

I did do one cool experiment with dry ice before, but it ended in small explosion which left a hole in the ceiling! I didn’t get into trouble because it was my boss’ idea to try it!