Nitrous Oxide Cylinder

I needed a short length of steel tube recently about 3 inches diameter. While walking to our local shops the other day my eyes lit up at a discarded gas cylinder that would do the job.

Examining it later it would appear to have contained food grade nitrous oxide at 165 bar. Haven't weighed it so not sure if it's full or not. Anyway repeating the route a few days later I found another, then today returning home I could have picked up another 2! I now have 3!

These are the same sized cylinders as the disposable welding gas ones that contain argon/co2

Question is why are they being discarded is it the latest craze in sniffing?

Alan

Hippy Crack, I expect someone is filling balloons and flogging them off to kids at a tidy profit.

Either that or someone has an unhealthy taste for whipped cream

Edited By JasonB on 10/12/2022 16:36:51

Just scanned the barcode - contents being used as laughing gas. Hospitals filling with casualties, some fatal.

Better off sticking with their playstation me thinks.

Alan

Lots of legitimate uses for Nitrous Oxide mostly in cooking. A nearby restaurant, coffee bar or ice-cream machine might be the source. The containers are disposable. But Jason could well be right. It's laughing gas, and people misuse it for recreational purposes, ahem. As substance abuse goes it's far safer than the other things people sniff.

Unlikely because food-grade gas is expensive, but NOX is just the job for boosting IC engines. In addition to being an Oxygen carrier, it increases the density of charge by cooling it dramatically, resulting in about 50% more energy available to push the piston. The empties might be from a performance car enthusiast.

Dave

Samuel Colt was an early proponent:

[quote]
When Colt returned to the United States during 1832, he resumed working for his father, who financed the production of two guns, a rifle and a pistol. The first completed pistol exploded when it was fired, but the rifle performed well. His father would not finance any more development, so Samuel needed to find a way to pay for the development of his ideas.^[6] He had learned about nitrous oxide (laughing gas) from the factory chemist of his father's textile plant, so he took a portable laboratory on tour and earned a living performing laughing gas demonstrations across the United States and Canada, calling himself as "the Celebrated Dr. Coult of New-York, London and Calcutta".^[7] Colt thought of himself as a man of science and believed if he could enlighten people about a new idea like nitrous oxide, he could in turn make people more receptive to his new idea concerning a revolver.

[/quote]

MichaelG.

.

Ref: __ **LINK**

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Colt#Early_years_(1814–1835)

Automotive NOS is not as pure and is a lot cheaper (£5-8/lbs) than food grade (£20/lbs) so can't see why anyone would want to use that in a car

The little ones found loose in the street have been dumped by sniffers, probably the same for the larger ones you found . The morons are bulk buying now.

Just checked cylinders and they are empty - no laughing matter!

Nice bits of steel tube.

Alan

Not just any old tube either, it is most likely to be seamless and good grade material to handle the stated fill pressure.

Brian

Especially when you consider just how much is required for a short length of time. It's good for drag racing, but not much more.

You can pick up the small ones by the bucketful where gangs of youths congregate.

Mike

It certainly can be fatal. Years ago a local dental nurse was found dead from it's use. She was rather a quiet girl and quite personable, but was apparently in the habit of sniffing the nitrous oxide when the dentist was not around. As far as I know, nitrous oxide is still used as an anaesthetic by dentists.

I note that one source says that it's regular use causes infertility. Step forward please, Mr Darwin

Chas

Be careful cutting it open with an angle grinder, torch or similar. While NOX is not strictly flammable, it is a rapid oxidiser of the ilk of oxygen so can turn little sparks into big ones. Containers will explode if heated in a fire.

I would definitely flush it out with water before cutting, even with a hacksaw, just in case.

We used to use nitrous as an anaesthetic adjunct but then literature started suggesting an association with miscarriage in nurses exposed to the stuff hence it lost it's mainstream use.
It was also used as an agent in cryosurgery. I used to have a 'gun' through which the gas was allowed to expand and cool. Relatively safe since nowhere near the temps of liquid nitrogen so penetration of tissues was limited to superficial applications of a few millimetres.

pgk

Problem with one time use cylinders is that the council / operator refuse centres refuse the cylinders as they can cause explosive damage to the metal crushers. Our tip refuses out of date fire extinguishers, in fact anything that is cylindrical, unless the top/ outlet has been removed which can be a dangerous occupation !

I picked one up on the way home from ringing this morning. I'll remove the fitting from the top and use the cylinder for something, even if that's just as a former for sheetmetal

Nitrous Oxide, or a blend holding it, is still used an analgesic, typically the 'Entonox' brand.

I believe it is used in birth-pain easing but I am no expert on that kind of thing! (Her Majesty Queen Victoria used chloroform.)

However, I recall being taught how to use Entonox, and a Warm Air Breathing kit, in a cave-rescue "workshop" session. With these the casualty holds the face-mask, and tends to drop it when sufficiently dosed, so it is inherently safe when used like that, under supervision. A demand-valve prevents waste of gas. It big advantage is that used properly, it soon wears off and does not leave residues that could interfere with the subsequent hospital treatment.

Similarly if the air-heater, using a CO2 + soda-lime reaction in a heat-exchanger, becomes too warm. (If the casualty is unconscious one of the first-aiders monitors the temperature, if necessary personally taking a cautious breath at intervals.) It is used to ward off exposure and its resulting hypothermia.

I have also used Entonox for real, when I slashed my hand on a badly-opened food tin and needed stitches.

'

What of the "disposable" cylinders from small DIY-type MIG welders? The label says dispose of as scrap metal in the local "recycling centre" but I am wary of that. Ordinary aerosol cans are a different matter. I vent their residual propellant completely then knock the valves in with a punch and hammer. The welding-gas cartridges seem more problematical and it is not easy to determine if they are empty even in use. ('Specially with my steel-splodging!)

I picked up another the other day, lovely pieces of seamless tube although I definitely have enough now!

Alan

Comment about them exploding in the council crusher reminded me of a visit to my local scrapyard many years ago. They had just bought a new crusher - huge thing, 20-30 foot long- took several cars at a time and made cubes of them or shredded steel like it was toffee. Anyway, couple of weeks after they got it they were crushing a car and thought it must have had a gas cylinder in the boot. It exploded under pressure and you wouldn't believe the damage. The main hydraulic cylinder was like a banana and all the others were damaged. Like in the Michael Cain film "it blew the b----y doors off!" The whole thing had to be sent back to Belgium to be rebuilt at a cost of £40,000.

So, lesson for today - don't put gas cylinders in the crusher.