I have to geekrage for a moment, though I know you got this out of the reader:
Ice-9 had a high melting point for water, so that it would stay ice at room temperature, rather than being liquid water. The danger was not that it would freeze -anything- it contacted, but rather that if it came into contact with regular water, it would convert that water into ice-9, thereby freezing that whole body of water. If it were to touch the oceans, almost all water on earth would quickly become a solid and unusable.
As for Carbonite, it was not intended to freeze living things. The chamber was on Cloud City on Bespin, a gas giant planet rich in Tibanna gas which both the Empire and Alliance used to power some of their weapons. The workers at Cloud City would use special equipment to harvest the gas which was then "packed" for shipment in carbonite so that it could remain gas. The chamber was altered to freeze living beings by Vader's order, as he wanted to trick Luke into getting into it and freezing him so Vader could deliver him to the Emperor. The only reason Han was frozen was because Vader wanted to test it to be sure it was survivable. He then handed him over to Boba Fett to bring to Jabba.
Ice-9 had a high melting point for water, so that it would stay ice at room temperature, rather than being liquid water. The danger was not that it would freeze -anything- it contacted, but rather that if it came into contact with regular water, it would convert that water into ice-9, thereby freezing that whole body of water. If it were to touch the oceans, almost all water on earth would quickly become a solid and unusable.
As for Carbonite, it was not intended to freeze living things. The chamber was on Cloud City on Bespin, a gas giant planet rich in Tibanna gas which both the Empire and Alliance used to power some of their weapons. The workers at Cloud City would use special equipment to harvest the gas which was then "packed" for shipment in carbonite so that it could remain gas. The chamber was altered to freeze living beings by Vader's order, as he wanted to trick Luke into getting into it and freezing him so Vader could deliver him to the Emperor. The only reason Han was frozen was because Vader wanted to test it to be sure it was survivable. He then handed him over to Boba Fett to bring to Jabba.