FSA Report on Dry Ice Blasting
Cleaning and decontaminating food processing equipment
Decontaminating various food grade surfaces with dry ice blasting
This independent Contractors Report to the Food Standards Agency (submitted by Dr Ian Millar, Microchem Bioscience Limited) discusses in detail the effectiveness of dry ice blasting in decontaminating various food grade surfaces, including stainless steel, ceramic tiles, and food grade plastics and plastic surface coatings.
The report concludes that the Cold Jet dry ice blasting process effectively decontaminated surfaces of Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli, and Listeria monocytogenes such that these microorganisms were not detectable using conventional microbiological methods after a defined dry ice blasting treatment. Decreases in target bacterial populations by a factor of 10,000 or more were obtained, and that this was due to the combined application of dry ice pellets and compressed air was shown experimentally.
