Home workshop fatal tragedy

[RobinParticipant @robin]

Maybe he was trying to make a hydrogen bomb and nobody told about lithium

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Posted by duncan webster on 21/04/2018 14:41:46:

I guess many of us have propane bottles in our workshops, not really a good idea.

Duncan – spot on. Thank you.

In my basement, only ONE plumbers' propane bottle. Propane stored outside, the large propane bottles literally outside. Small Acet. bottle and smaller propane bottle for torches, stored in a garden shed that leaks around the doors.

One of our neighbours, a few years ago, was cleaning something in his basement with gasoline (petrol) and something happened, maybe the pilot flame in the natural gas water heater, because he burned his house down. Everyone survived; seemingly he poured the gasoline down his plumbing drain, which here is all inside or under the house.

Most solvents stored outside, but some also in basement – it's bloody cold in Canada where I live, so the outside stuff is often not accessible without digging for a good part of the year.

I think we all need to be reminded of this – it's easy for bad habits to form.

Here's a pic of my winter-time silver soldering setup. Summer I use the barbeque with bricks on the grill as a stand. Note, the picture attached is not inside!

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

I like your picture, John, but what have you Canadians done to the weather? A pal emailed me from Toronto a few days ago and said they were in the middle of an ice storm so severe that he and his neighbours were looking out candles and flashlights in case the ice brought the electricity supply lines down. Hope you keep this weather on your side of the Atlantic – it's Spring here in Scotland!

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Mike;

Yes, last snow that fell was Thursday morning – when it was 30 degrees in Amsterdam, it was below freezing here.

Spring came today, though, 11 forecast for today, 18 for Tuesday, then back down again – maybe an early winter will be here then. I hope the final bits of snow in our back yard (where that picture was taken) melt away before then…

(sigh) Oh! To be in Britain, where the cold snaps last as long as a pint of beer does! (smile)

[Ray LyonsParticipant @raylyons29267]

You may have seen the claims from some that they can run their cars on water. This is in fact a method of generating hydrogen using stainless steel coils. It makes my hair stand on end, thinking of the very volatile mixture being fed into an engine manifold on a car and in many cases, the crude controls leave much to be desired.

[J HancockParticipant @jhancock95746]

A little known fact ?

A pure hydrogen 'atmosphere' is used to cool the 660MW generating sets in the nuclear power stations.

Reason, hydrogen is 2000 times better than air at heat transfer.

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Some perhaps useful (or not) insights to the chemistry of using fuels such as hydrogen and propane fuels.

If you have propane stored inside a domestic situation (and likely even in a garage or workshop on the property) and there is an explosion and/or fire, your household insurance is likely to default. It should only be stored in special buildings, with vents at ground level, or outside.

Only butane bottles can be stored inside a house – like portable gas fires, etc – and propane should only be fed to things like cookers from ouside the building. All this is part of the Gas Regulations, so it may well be illegal to have a propane bottle inside a house, unless the risks are covered by a tradesperson’s liability insurance.

Water, when electrolysed, provides the perfect ratio of 2 volumes of hydrogen to one volume of oxygen which are required to convert those gases back to water without any surplus oxygen or hydrogen. It is called a stoichiometric mixture and provides the biggest bang. Over-charging a lead acid battery can create a good explosive mixture, too

A friend was charging an old battery and doing either some electric welding or angle grinding too close to the battery when his old battery exploded, showering him with (luckily) dilute sulphuric acid. He was alright (helmeted, or at least goggled, but his overalls were never the same!) It is the same way that some motorists have found out that they should connect to a jump-start battery in the proper order and place.

When I refined precious metals we often reduced precious metal compounds to metal sponge with hydrogen. The simple way was an excess of hydrogen and set fire to it as it leaked from the reaction vessel. No problem at all!

Any suitable reactive metal will produce hydogen when reacted together, and the reactive alkali metals will prduce hydrogen when reacted with water.

Some may remember that sodium produced a yellow flame, but only if the lump of sodium became trapped and hot enough to set fire to the hydrogen. Potassium reacted strongly enough to always prduce a lilac flame at the surface of the water. Do it in a glass vessel wit Caesium and the glass vessel will be destroyed. All simple chemical reactions.

I expect the bullfinch torch uses separate sources of fuel and oxidant or uses a lot of electricity to electrolyse water, then mixes them and burns the two back to water.

I use a surface mix burner when melting glass with an oxy-propane torch. I produce my oxygen by ‘molecular sieving’ and thereby separating the nitrogen from the rest (the oxygen produced is at best about 98% pure because of the other components in the atmosphere, down to about 88% if the machine is run flat out.)

My oxycon cost me about 150 quid when I bought it.

H O H generators claimed to be able to enhance car engines are a bit of a sales-hype myth. There is never a 100% useful energy conversion and there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ where energy conversion is concerned.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by not done it yet on 21/04/2018 20:15:40:

Some perhaps useful (or not) insights to the chemistry of using fuels such as hydrogen and propane fuels.

[ … ]

I expect the bullfinch torch uses separate sources of fuel and oxidant or uses a lot of electricity to electrolyse water, then mixes them and burns the two back to water.

.

Thanks for your insights … you clearly have a breadth & depth of experience in these matters

Regarding the Bullfinch/SafeFlame system : Yes it "uses a lot of electricity to electrolyse water" … Brochure: **LINK**

http://bullfinch-gas.co.uk/images/stories/virtuemart/category/safeflame.pdf

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/04/2018 20:57:36

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

It is very sad that somebody has died.

I went to School through the 1950s and well remember our enthusiastic Secondary School Science Teacher using electrolysis to demonstrate the Hydrogen ‘pop’.

Edited By V8Eng on 21/04/2018 22:07:22

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by not done it yet on 21/04/2018 20:15:40:

H O H generators claimed to be able to enhance car engines are a bit of a sales-hype myth. There is never a 100% useful energy conversion and there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ where energy conversion is concerned.

Yes, theres also a whole host of other (possibly bogus) claims about what HxOxH can do, which is precisely why they claim it because they want to monetise the technology, most mainstream science claims it's little more than a glorified hydrogen torch. The proponents swear by it.

But like you said, there's no such thing as a free lunch with energy, you can't expect to get more energy than the potential of the input.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

There's nothing magical about hydrogen. If it's not mixed with air / oxygen, it simply burns like any other fuel, albeit no carbon, so no soot. On the other hand, almost any combustible material will explode if correctly divided and mixed with oxygen eg coal dust, sawdust, flour, petrol, LPG…hydrogen etc etc.

Using hydrogen as a coolant is "2000 times better than air" presumably because it changes state from liquid to gas ("phase change", "heat of evaporation" etc) in the process. Rather like water or ammonia or any number of liquids / refrigerants.

Murray

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

Posted by Muzzer on 21/04/2018 23:51:37:

There's nothing magical about hydrogen. If it's not mixed with air / oxygen, it simply burns like any other fuel, albeit no carbon, so no soot. On the other hand, almost any combustible material will explode if correctly divided and mixed with oxygen eg coal dust, sawdust, flour, petrol, LPG…hydrogen etc etc.

Using hydrogen as a coolant is "2000 times better than air" presumably because it changes state from liquid to gas ("phase change", "heat of evaporation" etc) in the process. Rather like water or ammonia or any number of liquids / refrigerants.

Murray

Murraay,

I don’t think there would be any phase change using hydrogen to cool a nuclear reactor (well, not while it is producing!). They did OK with the AGRs being cooled by CO2…

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by not done it yet on 22/04/2018 08:03:35:

I don’t think there would be any phase change using hydrogen to cool a nuclear reactor (well, not while it is producing!). They did OK with the AGRs being cooled by CO2…

.

It's way beyond my experience, but I was looking at this note last night: **LINK**

https://www.power-eng.com/articles/print/volume-113/issue-6/features/hydrogen-cools-well-but-safety-is-crucial.html

… Does that sound more realistic ?

MichaelG.

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

I have often thought that once the cost was paid, of setting up the sunlight/voltaic cells to produce free electricity, it should be possible to use said elec. to electrolyse water, collect and store the gasses for later use as vehicle fuel or distillation of seawater to irrigate, e.g., the Sahara desert and put that hot area to good use for crop growing. What MichaelG says above about amount of elec. required, if correct, makes me doubtful if my thoughts would be practicable.

John

Edited By DMB on 22/04/2018 08:49:17

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by DMB on 22/04/2018 08:47:33:

I have often thought that once the cost was paid, of setting up the sunlight/voltaic cells to produce free electricity, it should be possible to use said elec. to electrolyse water, collect and store the gasses for later use as vehicle fuel or distillation of seawater to irrigate, e.g., the Sahara desert and put that hot area to good use for crop growing. What MichaelG says above about amount of elec. required, if correct, makes me doubtful if my thoughts would be practicable.

.

This is clipped from the Bullfinch/SafeFlame brochure:

.

QED … I would think.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I have just found this; which apparently contradicts my opinion: **LINK**

https://www.carboncommentary.com/blog/2017/7/5/hydrogen-made-by-the-electrolysis-of-water-is-now-cost-competitive-and-gives-us-another-building-block-for-the-low-carbon-economy

That said: I do struggle to find his opening remark convincing.

[quote] Generating an extra unit of electricity via PV or wind has no cost. [/quote]

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/04/2018 10:04:44

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 22/04/2018 09:08:37:

Posted by DMB on 22/04/2018 08:47:33:

I have often thought that once the cost was paid, of setting up the sunlight/voltaic cells to produce free electricity, it should be possible to use said elec. to electrolyse water, collect and store the gasses for later use as vehicle fuel or distillation of seawater to irrigate, e.g., the Sahara desert and put that hot area to good use for crop growing. What MichaelG says above about amount of elec. required, if correct, makes me doubtful if my thoughts would be practicable.

.

This is clipped from the Bullfinch/SafeFlame brochure:

.

QED … I would think.

MichaelG.

Not quite perhaps. The sun delivers roughly 1kW of energy to each square metre on the ground. That's a lot, and it's free.

Thirty years ago solar panels were expensive novelties, full of exotic materials, inefficient and unreliable. No way did they compete with conventional electricity. The same technical relationship as the motor car had with a steam express locomotive in 1910. But times change!

Current solar panels are efficient and much cheaper; their development perhaps now comparable to that of the motor car of 1960, with many improvements still to come. Imperfect though they are, the stage has been reached where mass-deployment will reduce the cost dramatically.

The obvious problem with solar is that it only produces energy when the sun shines. Some method of storage is needed for dull periods, and some use for excess capacity on bright days.

I don't have any trouble seeing electricity being mass-produced in the Sahara and wired back to the UK. Challenging yes, impossible, no. Don't forget that most of our energy already comes from abroad. Not just by super-tanker from the Middle East – gas and oil pipelines run for thousands of miles across Russia, Europe, China and the Americas. The same could be done with electricity; much easier to make HVDC today than it was in the recent past.

DMB's suggestions make a lot more sense if you imagine a world full of solar panels flooding us with cheap electricity at inconvenient times. The Bullfinch is designed to meet a niche need. I don't think the numbers prove anything.

Predicting the future is always dodgy. I distinctly remember being told we would all be riding round on jet-packs by now. And no-one would have to work!

Dave

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

What he means is that once you've paid for the solar panels it costs nothing to run them. Well very little, they must need some maintainance even if it's only sweeping the leaves off. The downside is that you've got all this expensive kit sat there generating nothing when it's dark, which is about 2/3 of the time in the depths of winter in UK, and if you really went to town with installation they would generate more than you need on a really sunny summer day, so you'd have to switch them off. Both wind and solar will depend on energy storage, and converting electricity to gas (either hydrogen or methane) has been tried elsewhere, and Tesla has installed a humungous battery in Australia.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by DMB on 22/04/2018 08:47:33:

I have often thought that once the cost was paid, of setting up the sunlight/voltaic cells to produce free electricity, it should be possible to use said elec. to electrolyse water, collect and store the gasses for later use as vehicle fuel ..

I think that's what the unfortunate fellow in the original story thought too…

Re the cost of solar splitting of H20 into H and O, the boffins are already working on photocatalysts that do away with expensive and clumsy solar panels and do the job more directly. Early days yet, but it does sound promising: **LINK**

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

On water and cars, in the old days it was well known that many cars ran better on damp, foggy days. You used to be able to get devices that gently introduced a small amount of water to the inlet manifold.

It isn't snake oil – read up on Focke Wolf water injection to see what it can do – 1,600hp up to 2,000hp. The normal system was methanol water (to stop freezing) but pure water could be used.

[Gary WoodingParticipant @garywooding25363]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 21/04/2018 12:55:47:.

What goes around comes around [or some-such truism] …

This is quite a recent development: **LINK**

http://bullfinch-gas.co.uk/blowtorches/safeflame

MichaelG.

Hardly a recent development. I've been using an Aqua-Flame unit for soldering precious metals for well over 15 years. It creates oxygen and hydrogen by the electrolysis of water. It's generic name is a Brown's gas generator. The generated gas mixture of 2 parts hydrogen, 1 part oxygen, burns at a temperature of about 2800C, which is rather too high for most precious metals, so the unit passes the mixture through a device, called the booster. The booster is filled with a liquid that, apart from acting as a flame arrestor, can, if volatile, reduce the flame temperature and increase it's calorific value. If the liquid is water, then the flame is purely oxyhydrogen, but if it's MEK the temperature is reduced to about 1800C. Other liquids, such as methylated spirit, can also be used to give different temperatures.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 22/04/2018 10:42:49:

Not quite perhaps. The sun delivers roughly 1kW of energy to each square metre on the ground. That's a lot, and it's free.

[ …. ]

DMB's suggestions make a lot more sense if you imagine a world full of solar panels flooding us with cheap electricity at inconvenient times. The Bullfinch is designed to meet a niche need. I don't think the numbers prove anything.

Predicting the future is always dodgy. I distinctly remember being told we would all be riding round on jet-packs by now. And no-one would have to work!

.

Fair comments, Dave

My reason for quoting the Bullfinch figures was simply that they give a comprehensible indication of how much electrical energy is required to split deionised water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.

MichaelG.

.

P.S. … and once-upon-a-time we were also told that 'Atomic' energy would give us "Electricity too cheap to meter".

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Gary Wooding on 22/04/2018 11:10:06:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 21/04/2018 12:55:47:.

What goes around comes around [or some-such truism] …

This is quite a recent development: **LINK**

http://bullfinch-gas.co.uk/blowtorches/safeflame

MichaelG.

Hardly a recent development. I've been using an Aqua-Flame unit for soldering precious metals for well over 15 years. It creates oxygen and hydrogen by the electrolysis of water. …

.

Thanks for that, Gary … I wasn't aware of Aqua-Flame

I don't think anyone mentioned it when I was asking about micro-burners.

http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=129667&p=1

Perhaps there is some subtlety in Bullfinch's use of "development"

MichaelG.

 

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 22/04/2018 11:20:49

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I remember at one time that they promised, 'No cost' phone calls ?

Clive

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 22/04/2018 11:09:40:

On water and cars, in the old days it was well known that many cars ran better on damp, foggy days. You used to be able to get devices that gently introduced a small amount of water to the inlet manifold.

It isn't snake oil – read up on Focke Wolf water injection to see what it can do – 1,600hp up to 2,000hp. The normal system was methanol water (to stop freezing) but pure water could be used.

The GPO as it was then called (before your time) tried this in I think the 1960’s but gave up on the idea.

[Author]

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