kevinlimse
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Piped gas and zippo
What gas do they put in Piped Gas and zippo fluids to give them the "fuel" smell? and is it combustable?
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Blind Angel
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Fuel
Hydrocarbon to be more precise, mostly hexane, pentane, heptane (the lower boiling point liquid hydrocarbons)
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neutrino
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It's usually various mercapitans and sulfur-containing molecules.
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Harpoon
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Mercaptans have an -SH group and are flammable.
They can be named by naming the parent compound immediately followed by the word thiol. The -SH group can also be named as a substituent using the
group name, sulfhydryl. Mercaptans can also be named by naming the carbon group as a separate word followed by the word mercaptan. For example:
methanethiol
sulfhydrylmethane
methyl mercaptan
(stolen from http://chemistry.boisestate.edu/rbanks/organic/nomenclature/...)
As methyl mercaptan has a boiling point of 5.9°C, would this be the one used in natural gas? Ethyl mercaptan has a boiling point of 35°C, and would
therefore be a liquid at room temperature.
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neutrino
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Harpoon
Ethyl mercaptan has a boiling point of 35°C, and would therefore be a liquid at room temperature. |
Actually, this wouldn't matter. As long as it has some vapor pressure at room temp, some will be in the vapor state.
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Soil939
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Is butane a cleaner fuel source than the gas they put in zippos? Not really a science question just out of interest.
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FrankRizzo
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"gas they put in Zippo's"??
Normal Zippo lighters don't use a gas fuel; they use a liquid (naphtha) and a wick. Your average BIC uses butane gas with a mercaptan.
The naphtha fuel used for Zippo's doesn't contain any adulterants to make it smell. Because it’s already a mixture of many different
hydrocarbons, the lower BP ones give it the characteristic odor.
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cyclonite4
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Being a pyromaniac, i have a large amount of refillable lighters (my zippo is broken, my fave  ). I refill my gas lighters with "Butane Lighter Refill" ( 'duh ). I would have originally believed these to contain
relatively pure butane, as they say stuff like "Filtered", "Purified", etc.
Does anyone know why a mercaptan is added?
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Oxydro
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I think it's a safety feature -- so you can smell leaks more easily.
OT: If it's a real zippo you have, the company has a repair-for-free policy.... you might want to take advantage of it.
[Edited on 16-12-2004 by Oxydro]
"Our interest's on the dangerous side of things" -- Browning
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FrankRizzo
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Absolutely, it's added as a safety feature. Iso-butane is basically odorless.
You can find butane without the mercaptans added though. Brands such as Colibri, or others that have statements like "triple filtered"
often do not contain the additive, and are good for non-polar solvent extractions.
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cyclonite4
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Yeah, leak detection makes sense. I do however, have an unused can of one that claims "multi-filtered" and "pure" butane.
Thanks for that.
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