C12 – How to Use Liquid Nitrogen for Your Cryotherapy Chamber
This guide covers all the main aspects we often get asked about when it comes to dealing with liquid nitrogen, whether that’s handling liquid nitrogen, the best way to store liquid nitrogen, and your options when it comes to fuelling your cryotherapy chamber with liquid nitrogen.
In my previous guide, C7 – Is an Electric Cryotherapy Chamber Better Than a Liquid Nitogren Cryotherapy Chamber? I’ve covered a lot of the points about the dangers of liquid nitrogen cryotherapy machines, which I will briefly recap below, before drilling down into the specifics with this guide.
Introduction to Handling Liquid Nitrogen
It needs to be handled very, very, carefully, as there is no denying this is a very dangerous substance indeed, and I mean very dangerous.
When it comes to staff handling liquid nitrogen, this needs to be a big concern for you, as your staff might not be as careful as you, and if they ended up causing themselves severe injury, whilst checking Instagram! Guess who are they going to blame and sue? Of course, you!
The two big dangers when it comes to liquid nitrogen are the actual handling of the containers storing the liquid nitrogen and the ability to suffocate.
It’s worth reiterating again, that you cannot see or feel liquid nitrogen, and it doesn’t take long to suffer extreme health issues from a lack of oxygen.
Is Liquid Nitrogen Flammable?
Air is mostly nitrogen, which is not flammable. Nitrogen is also non-reactive in general, so it doesn’t support the combustion of other materials, either. After nitrogen, the most abundant gas in our air is oxygen.
Can I Touch Liquid Nitrogen?
Liquid nitrogen is cold enough to cause severe frostbite upon contact with living diseased tissue, therefore you!
Ensure you wear all the proper safety gear (photo above to come shortly of Ralph in full LN safety kit!) when handling liquid nitrogen, to prevent contact or inhalation of the extremely cold vapor. Cover and insulate skin to avoid exposure while implementing this cryotherapy method.
Liquid Nitrogen Deliveries
After you have established it’s safe to have a liquid nitrogen powered cryo chamber at your premises, you then need to know if liquid nitrogen can be safely delivered?
We had an example of a wellbeing venue in Aberdeen town centre, that no matter how long we spent trying to work on a solution, we kept hitting a brick wall (sometimes literally!) and eventually after over 40 hours on the project, plus site inspections by multiple contractors/engineers, we had to give up.
It was just too dangerous to deliver liquid nitrogen, in the town centre, with people walking past on the main road.
When having a delivery you need to ensure that you have put up, all the health and safety warning signs, while also making sure that someone is around, to deal with all the safety aspects, and act as a second pair of eyes to the delivery driver.
Storage of Liquid Nitrogen
Once you have your liquid nitrogen delivered, it now needs to be stored and stored safely.
For a large vessel i.e. 120 litres plus, you have to ensure that the vessel is kept secure and away from others.
As they will often be kept outside, you, therefore, need to ensure the vessel is secured in a cage, so that animals or intruders can’t get at it, both from a security and safety perspective.
For those of you who choose dewars (the smaller unpressurised vessels), then you need to be certain that these are in a safe and secure location? Again, think small children, animals, and any other curious type of individuals. And what did they say about the curious cat…
What Risks Are There with Liquid Nitrogen?
Adding a lot of nitrogen to the air reduces the relative amount of oxygen. This can result in an asphyxiation risk. While electric cryotherapy machine uses freshly oxygenated cool air to fill the chamber with no risk of exposure to harmful gas. There are notable differences in health benefits as well as machine maintenance when comparing an electric cryo chamber to a nitrogen-powered chamber.
Extreme cold nitrogen gas is heavier than air, so the risk is greatest near the ground. This is why liquid nitrogen needs to be used in a well-ventilated room.
Where Can You Get Liquid Nitrogen From?
We currently have 3 suppliers that can provide you with all your liquid nitrogen needs, nationwide.
If you are lucky enough to be operating in London, then it gets even better for you, as there is an abundance of liquid nitrogen suppliers, with far more regular deliveries.
How Much Does Liquid Nitrogen Cost?
The good news, very little.
On average, it’s just £1 per litre plus delivery charges, which of course vary depending on where in the UK you are.
How Much Liquid Nitrogen Does Each Treatment Use?
You will use 4 to 5 litres pre-cooling and then around 3 litres per 3min minimally invasive treatment.
So for each one-off whole body cryotherapy treatment, you are looking at 7-8 litres.
If you time your nitrogen cryotherapy treatments more carefully, you can run them back-to-back and once the cryo chamber is cooled down, your entire body doesn’t have to burn through the 4-5 litres of liquid nitrogen each time, to get it down to the extremely cold temperatures.
How Many Treatments Will You Get Out of a Dewar?
A few factors will affect this, such as the age of the dewar and how long since you last filled the dewar up, as daily, a very small amount of nitrogen will be lost.
However, on average if you are doing medical treatments back-to-back, you would expect to get 12 treatments out of each full dewar.
How Much Do Dewars Cost?
You can purchase additional dewars for between £1,200 to £1,500 excluding vat and delivery.
What Are the Benefits of Pressurized Input, Over Dewar Fed Cryosauna?
For those performing more than 8 to 12 treatments a day, it works out both cheaper and easier to operate for you, plus saves you time!
You would be mad to have 10 or 20 dewars on your premises, when one large vessel of 240 litres or more, could do all this for you.
Can a Cryosauna Offer Both Pressurised and Dewar Fed Systems?
Yes, the Cryomed One is capable of this and one of the very few cryosauna’s in the world, that can do this.
In fact, it might be the only Cryosauna in the world, that offers you both these options!
Do Pressurised Cryosauna’s Come with a Pressurised Vessel?
If you order a Dewar based input system, two dewars are included.
For the larger pressurized vessels, due to the huge variations in the size people require (especially when you consider they range from 100 litres to 5,000 litres – yes some are 50 times the size!) it makes a lot more sense for us to arrange directly with our liquid nitrogen supplier, for them to offer you market leading prices, in an array of sizes, that best suit your need, when they drop off your first delivery of liquid nitrogen.
What’s the Best Size Pressurised vessel 100L to 5,000L?
This all depends on the number of treatments you are doing per day/week. And also, the size of storage area you have.
Our Site Planners can help you decide which options will work best for you when the on-site audit is carried out pre-delivery.
How Many Dewars are Included?
With each dewar fed Cryo Sauna you will receive two dewars.
If you would like to order more, please let us know at the time of ordering, as this will save you delivery charges!
What Size are the Dewars?
Dewars range in size from 30 litres to 50 litres, personally, anything under 50 litres is a waste of time as you will soon go through the liquid nitrogen, and they don’t take up that much more space than the 40 litres.
How Heavy Are Dewars?
The exact weight varies depending on the amount of liquid nitrogen in the dewar, however, empty they weigh 14.5kg.
Generally, we would recommend two people to safely move a full dewar.
Want to Know More About Cryotherapy Chambers?
If you like what you have read and want to know more about cryotherapy chambers, then just fill out the form below and we can send you out a free copy of our “Buyers Guide to Cryotherapy Chambers”.