I saw a mid-covid video back when gasoline prices were soaring of someone dumping gallons of gasoline in a giant plastic tub (to save money or something) but people in the comments claimed it would fall apart. I searched it up and gasoline does break down plastic but I can’t figure out why. Is it because they’re both carbon chains or something?
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You can think of many forms of plastic as “frozen gasoline”, that is, something chemically similar to gasoline (hydrocarbon macromolecule) but in solid form. In these cases, “like dissolves like”.
You need the *right* type of plastic if you want to use it to store gasoline. Buy an approved container, or be sorry later.
And, by the way, it’s not a really good idea to store large quantities of gas. First off, it’s a huge risk, unless done very carefully. And second, gasoline requires stabilizers to keep it effective. Especially ones that have ethanol as part of the formula, because the ethanol will absorb water which is bad for combustion (and your engine), and will eventually separate out.
You can fight this degradation to a small extent, by adding after-market stabilizers (e.g., STA-BIL) to the gas, but this may only extend the useful lifetime a year (perhaps two).
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