What was carbon-freezing usually used for?

When they froze Han, they didn't know it was going to work, so I was curious. What, in the GFFA, was carbonite-freezing usually used for? I'm just thinking about the facilities. The chamber where they froze Han was about 5 or 6 feet across, and probably 8 or 10 deep. Plus, when they freeze something, it doesn't freeze in a cylindrical ingot, to match the shape of the chamber. Also, the freezing machinery inserts some sort of mechanism to monitor whatever's frozen.

I'm thinking it was used as some sort of metal-coating for objects, like bronzing a baby shoe, but bigger. Perhaps they put things like droid or machine parts in there to give them a carbonite coating, as armor or something. Instead of the metal being poured into the chamber, it's more-likely that it gets sprayed in a moleten form onto whatever is being coated. (pouring it as a liquid would form a cylindrical ingot, not a box-shape.)

I would have loved to see Anakin get dipped in carbonite in Episode 3 "for his journey to the Emperor," instead of ... well, what he gets dipped in.

Thoughts?

 

According to the official site, it's used to store gas and goods for transport.

From starwars.com:
The city supports a number of carbon-freezing chambers for the containment of Tibanna gas.
Molten carbonite is flash-frozen into a solid state, encasing materials for transport in an incredibly strong metal alloy.

 

It was to freeze Tibiana(spelling) gas. Then the gas was stored away until needed or sold.

 

It was a special alloy made specifically for freezing any Harrison Fords in the Galaxy. Guess Vader really lucked out.

 

I think Tibanna gas is used to boost firepower in weapons.

 

I always thought it was for freezing carbon myself

 

Does anyone know just how it comes out in a rectangular hsape? the pit itself is a circle... ?

 

Circular surroundings perhaps; Rectangular slab to accomodate the size and proportions of a humanoid with life support monitor frame a definite.

I also had the sneaking suspicions that the carbonite slab was kinda a homage to the monolith from 2001.

 

Tibana Gas is used for certain weapon systems and for the propolsion systems ins ships and vehicules i believe, but i dont remember that well anymore.

 

From starwars.com:
The city supports a number of carbon-freezing chambers for the containment of Tibanna gas.
Molten carbonite is flash-frozen into a solid state, encasing materials for transport in an incredibly strong metal alloy.

Sounds to me like the carnonite is just used for preserving items for transpost, such as food or whatever. That's what I always thought, anyway... they'd just never tried using it on a living creature before, so they tested it with Han to ensure that it wouldn't kill Luke when Darth Vader froze him in it and transported him to the Emperor. So they can probably put almost anything inside of it that they want to.

 

Tibanna Gas is also used for Hyperdrive cores,IIRC.

 

Vader was lucky Lando had a carbonite-freezing block with life-support just laying around.