When you raise your glass to toast the new year tonight, do you care how pristine your ice cubes are? Or could they have salmonella, E. coli or copper trapped inside?

Unless the ice was made from purified water, they might, says Peter Moenickheim, president of aquaICE, LLC which sells purified ice. The Dublin entrepreneur hopes that consumers will turn to purified ice for the same reason millions have flocked to bottled water.

Moenickheim’s aquaICE™ is a purified water, packed in filled and sealed ice trays that consumers can buy at room temperature or frozen. The ice, like bottled water, is meant to provide an extra measure of safety and purity. "There’s a misconception out there, where people think that if you freeze bacteria, it dies," Moenickheim said. "But that’s not the case. A lot of food-poisoning cases have resulted from bad ice."

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition concurs. Purified ice and bottled water both are regulated by the FDA as packaged food products that must meet strict standards for safety, quality and labeling. As health becomes a greater factor in consumer-purchasing decisions, purified ice is beginning to be seen as a safe and convenient option, said Moenickheim, who expects his product to take off as a cool new commodity.

Sales of purified water are huge. The International Bottled Water Association said nearly 6.8 billion gallons of bottled water were sold last year, reflecting an 8.6 percent increase in sales over the previous year.

aquaICE™ is made from municipal water, which is sent through a special filtering and purification process, Moenickheim said. It’s sold in packs of 60 or 100 cubes, ranging in price from $3.99 to $9.99, he said. While several companies already sell purified ice in bags, aquaICE is the only one to hold a patent on individual cubes that can be stored warm or frozen, he said.

"It’s a good concept," said Laura Current, a purifiedwater consultant and owner of Current Technologies Inc. in Georgia. "In America, it’s a common standard to fill your glass with ice then add the drink, resulting in a third to a half of the liquid in your glass from the melting ice," Current said. "People often confuse ‘frozen’ with ‘clean,’ but ‘frozen’ doesn’t mean ‘pure.’ " But, consumers really don’t need to worry about the quality of their ice as long as it’s made from a safe tap-water supply under standard conditions, said Mary Angela Miller, a dietitian at Ohio State University Hospitals. "Anything can become contaminated, but if you follow standard food-sanitation practices, you shouldn’t have a problem," Miller said.

Some consumers are nevertheless warming to the idea of purified ice, said Kyle Baker, a vice president for the Hills Market, one of six retailers that sell the product in the Columbus area. Sales of aquaICE™ there have been steady, he said. Baker said he was skeptical about the product at first, thinking, "Wow, what will they come up with next?" "But then, I realized it’s a great idea from a safety standpoint, since most people don’t realize that ice in a freezer can carry bacteria," Baker said. "We have a lot of high-end customers that buy high-end scotch, and don’t want to mix it with nasty tap-water ice cubes."