Nitrox in steel tanks ?

[diveprof]

Short answer is yes. I dive steel 100s with nitrox all the time. Perfect match for recreational diving.

 

[divad]

(For full disclosure -- I believe that steel tanks are much better than aluminum ones since they don't flip buoyancy as they empty).

They all flip buoyancy by the weight of the compressed gas used as they empty.

 

[Tortuga68]

By 'flip' he means go from negative to positive

 

[turnerjd]

Actually steel tanks are safer for high O2% than aluminium. In some countries 100% O2 is not allowed to be stored under pressure in aluminium tanks.

Aluminium itself is a highly reactive metal, and a freshly exposed surface is very quickly (minutes) oxised in air to give a very inert layer of aluminium oxide and heated up in air it will nicely burn. Whilst this should never be a problem in a tank, it becomes one in case of an accident.

A good place to look is the thread about Rick and Cindy Allen

As understand, something happened, the tank fell on its valve, and somehow a bad mix of heating (O2 escaping though a small hole - either cracked open or disloged valve) and freshly exposed (non oxidised) aluminium.

Jon T
P16 of the O2 tank explosion thread has a good video to watch

 

[Gilldiver]

I'll remember that the next time I see an old person walking around with an O2 feed from an Aluminum tank at the mall.

 

[boulderjohn]

By 'flip' he means go from negative to positive

This is really off topic for the thread, but it really doesn't make any difference whether the tank itself is buoyant or not buoyant. The only thing that matters is the change in the total weight of the diver + all the gear. If the diver uses 6 pounds of air during the dive, the diver will be 6 pounds lighter and thus more positive at the end of the dive than at the beginning.

 

[Damselfish]

I've seen many pics of divers with Nitrox tanks, but always are Alu tanks.

AL tanks are probably just more common where they're taking the pictures you're seeing. Like if you're looking at the common dive mag full of ads & articles about tropical destinations, those places tend to use AL tanks almost exclusively, hence pictures of AL tanks. Has nothing to do with what's in them.

 

[boulderjohn]

AL tanks are probably just more common where they're taking the pictures you're seeing. Like if you're looking at the common dive mag full of ads & articles about tropical destinations, those places tend to use AL tanks almost exclusively, hence pictures of AL tanks. Has nothing to do with what's in them.

Another factor regarding the pictures is that the big nitrox sticker is not actually a requirement. Although it is commonly done, many people who have O2 clean tanks prefer not to have ANY stickers like that on the sides of them. I know a lot of people with O2 clean steel tanks. I don't know any who have that Nitrox label on them.