How Do Instant Ice Packs Work?
Instant ice packs are a quick solution to provide the cooling benefits of hot and cold therapy when soothing coolness and swelling reduction are required. Steroplast’s Sterofreeze Instant Ice Packs are commonly used to treat injuries and reduce swelling in the sports and physiotherapy industries. We will unpack how instant ice packs work and explain the science behind these versatile and convenient products.
You can find out more information about alternative hot and cold therapy products, including reusable hot and cold packs and how they work, on our blog, and we answer frequently asked questions about instant ice packs too.
Instant Ice Packs: How Do They Work?
So, how do instant ice packs work?
Instant ice packs have been specially developed to become cold when agitated, making them the perfect piece of first aid equipment to apply to an injured or swollen area to provide pain relief and limit the damage.
Instant ice packs are essentially sealed plastic bags containing water and a separate inner bag or tube with a chemical reactant that, when agitated and mixed together, reacts and becomes cool. This unique instant ice pack chemical reaction is safely contained inside the pack which becomes cold quickly as the heat around it is absorbed.
The liquid inside the cold pack is water. Inside the water is another plastic bag or tube containing a chemical reactant such as ammonium nitrate, urea, or calcium ammonium nitrate, specially selected because it reacts with water. As the two chemicals combine inside the bag, an endothermic reaction quickly takes place, meaning that the pack begins to feel cold to the touch and absorbs heat. The temperature of the solution falls significantly, often close to 0 degrees Celsius, for about 10 to 15 minutes until the chemical reaction is over.
What is an Endothermic Reaction?
To understand the science behind the instant ice pack, endothermic/exothermic reactions need to be explained. Simply put, endothermic reactions are chemical reactions in which the reactants absorb heat energy from the surroundings to form products, whereas an exothermic reaction causes the chemicals that are combined to release heat.
Endothermic reactions, like that of an instant ice pack, lower the temperature of their surrounding area, creating a cooling effect.
Scientists widely accept that the breaking of a chemical bond usually requires an input of energy. While the formation of chemical bonds is typically accompanied by a release of energy. The energy involved in these processes can be in various forms, such as heat, light, or electricity. For example, the chemical reaction between water and ammonium nitrate in an instant ice pack absorbs heat from the surroundings, resulting in a drop in temperature.
In exothermic reactions, the formation of chemical bonds releases heat energy, leading to an increase in temperature.
Examples of Other Endothermic Reactions and Processes
Endothermic reactions and processes occur all the time in a wide variety of ways, causing a reduction in temperature in the surrounding areas.
Everyday occasions where you might have witnessed an endothermic reaction or process include:
- The melting of ice to form water.
- Evaporation of liquid water, forming water vapour.
- Transformation of solid CO2 to vapour or liquid.
- Photosynthesis in plants
Visit our
Personal First Aid Online Guide
Find everything you need, from first aid kits, plasters & bandages to hot & cold therapy.
Alternatives to Instant Ice Packs
Instant icepacks are a versatile, cost-effective and very fast-acting product that you can keep on hand to provide cold therapy to an injury without access to ice or a freezer. To optimise on the benefits of instant ice packs’ cooling effects, secure the pack over the injured or swollen area with Physiowrap SPORT that will hold the cold pack in place and provide gentle compression to promote faster recovery.
Despite the speed and convenience of how instant ice packs work, they are single-use disposables so it could be worth investing in longer-lasting reusable products such as our reusable ice bag or our highly versatile reusable hot and cold pack to provide cooling compression, or warming relief to suit your needs.
Other popular quick-acting cold-therapy products include:
We cover everything you need to know about how to use medical freeze spray on our blog.
Where aches, pains, and muscle tensions are more serious complaints than swelling, you could also consider the benefits of hot treatment. Sports first aid kits and sports physiotherapists’ medical kits often contain a selection of hot therapy products as well as cold therapy.
Our most popular hot therapy products include:
Visit our
Interactive First Aid Guide
Demystify workplace first aid & find out exactly what your business needs.
Please enter your details into the form below along with any questions or comments and a member of our team will be happy to provide you with more information:
