: Can a gas cylinder explode if there’s no oxygen? assuming it is exposed to high heat
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High heat leads to pressure increasing inside the cylinder. Pressure goes too high makes it go boom.
Fire needs oxygen to burn but a pressurized container heated will blow up without a fireball if no oxygen is present. Put a full pop can in the oven. Good example.
Edit typo
I was always taught the “Fire Triangle”.
Fuel-Oxygen-Spark
If you take anyone of the three away, then you can’t have a fire…. So I guess I wouldn’t think you could have a fire in a 0-oxygen environment…. Maybe I’m wrong? If so, I’d truly like an explanation. 🙃
If it’s full of gas, absolutely. Even insert gas like argon will cause a cylinder to explode under pressure. There are relief valves through to prevent this. If the pressure rises above a certain point the relief valve will trip and vent the entire tank for safety. The point at which the relief valve trips is significantly under what the tank would fail at.
An “explosion” is a rapid expansion in volume and outward release of energy. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve combustion, so oxygen is not necessary.
If you heated a sealed gas cylinder to the point where the pressure was enough to rupture the container, it would probably be considered an explosion.
Well…depends on what’s in the canister and what you mean by “explosion”. If there’s *any* pressurized gas in the canister and it is punctured, you’ll either get any explosion OR a decompression as the gas squeezes out through the hole. This will depend on the pressure level and the strength of the canister. Most industrial canister have ratings that describe these two scenarios. If there’s any gas at all in the canister and you expose it to *enough* heat, it’ll explode. Either from increased pressure or from heat stress.
Whether or not that explosion results in a fire/fireball depends on the nature of the gas and tye amount of heat applied. Many materials ignite on contact with air. I’m not aware of any that are gaseous, but white (or was it red?) phosphorus is a powder that ignites on contact with air, usually with explosive consequences. Also, many materials have an “auto-ignition” temperature: a temperature at which they will begin to /attempt/ to burn, even without an applied flame (this is in fact one of the ways matchsticks work). Without any oxygen, they’ll continue to attempt to auto-ignite until either they’re successful (because they found oxygen) or the temperature falls below the auto-ignition point. The former is far more likely because oxygen is present in a lot of things not limited to atmospheric air. Yes, materials at auto-ignition temperatures can *sometimes* ignite using the oxygen sequestered in solid or liquid matter. Not water, because it’s so tightly bound, but if the water is hot enough (due to the exposure to the heat), it’ll begin to break down into hydrogen and oxygen as it approaches the plasma phase transition, so it is *possible* (although very unlikely).
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