Old air in tanks.

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1. Mixing two common occurring gases eg. N2, O2 does not require any input/output of energy unlike dissolving a solid in a solvent(endothermic eg. dissolving salt in water or exothermic eg. dissolving NaOH in water).
2. There is no interaction between gas molecules of two different gases eg. He and O2. Unlike eg. hydrogen bonding in some solutions eg. acetic aicd which has "unusual" higher boiling point.
3. Gases do stratify by molecular weight in mesosphere or higher.
4. Helium, the lightest molecule, escape from earth for good.
5. I am not talking about gas under pressure in a confined space(tank). It is about FREE moving one.
I'm not sure what your point is; the OP asked about an old tank with N2/O2, and a prankster joked that the O2 could settle to the bottom. Most of us pointed out this simply won't happen in a scuba tank. Your question about whether an undisturbed gas sample would segregate isn't very clear. Under pressure or in a tank doesn't actually matter. If you're talking about a column of gas that reaches from sea level to the mesosphere, then maybe there will be a very slight segregation. But the difference in gravitational force over 1 meter (or even 10s or 100s of meters) is so trivial that entropy and diffusion, (and convective forces) would keep the gases fully mixed to any measurable degree. Also, your point #1 above isn't really relevant. You mention input/output of "energy", when I suspect you really mean "enthalpy". But the controlling factor here is Free Energy, which takes into account both enthalpy and entropy.

I repeat that the Lake Nyos CO2 blanket was a temporary (kinetically controlled) situation. Given time the gases did not stay segregated. Entropy won.
 
The MW of CO2 certainly plays a part in this tragedy. Would the outcome be different if it was eg CO which is lighter?
Of course. But again, the CO2 flowed down faster than mixing could occur. Note that it started out UNMIXED. Given time the gases mixed thoroughly. Once mixed, they're not going to spontaneously separate.
 
I can ask a chemist tomorrow
I can assure you that there's at least one chemist in this thread already :) And judging by some of the posts here, I'd guess there are two.
 
This has nothing to do with complacency. We hydro and VIP because tanks can and do blow up when filling them, not because "air goes bad".


@Peter69_56 , I suspect you meant to say testing for CO and not CO2 ?

Fisrtly I never mentioned bad air anywhere, Secondly temperature changes is going to influence the pressure of the cyclinder, basic stuff they cover in OW trainng. So you dont need to fill a a cyclinder to alter the pressure.

It is clear thu from some responses here that topics like this can be black, white, grey or shades therefore. Complacency is the word I use for this.
 
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1. Mixing two common occurring gases eg. N2, O2 does not require any input/output of energy unlike dissolving a solid in a solvent(endothermic eg. dissolving salt in water or exothermic eg. dissolving NaOH in water).
And your point is?

Whether the enthalpy of mixing is positive, negative or zero has nothing to do with whether or not we call the mixture a solution. If one of the components in the mixture makes up a large fraction, there's a fair chance that we'd call it a solution. If the minor component(s) are solid or gaseous, and the major component is liquid, we'd most probably call the mixture a solution.

2. There is no interaction between gas molecules of two different gases eg. He and O2. Unlike eg. hydrogen bonding in some liquid solutions eg. acetic aicd which has "unusual" higher boiling point.
Emphasis mine. Far from all liquids have hydrogen bonding between the molecules. What about liquid air? Is that a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen and argon, or is it a solution of oxygen and argon in nitrogen?

Let's look at some substances without hydrogen bonding between the molecules and extremely similar chemistry, like pure hydrocarbons. Let's take two gases, methane and ethane, two liquids, pentane and hexane, and two solids, octadecane and eicosane. Colloquially, we'd say that the mixtures of methane and hexane, or octadecane and hexane, are solutions, while the mixtures of methane and ethane, or pentane and hexane, or octadecane and eicosane, are mixtures. But there's really nothing fundamental which determines whether we call them "mixtures" or "solutions".

And what about the mixture of ethane and pentane? Both substances are liquid at at about -100 degrees C, so we'd probably call that a mixture of liquid ethane and liquid pentane. But at room temperature the ethane is gaseous and the pentane is liquid, and we'd probably call it a solution of ethane in pentane.

3. Gases do stratify by molecular weight in mesosphere or higher.
Not really. Take a look at the NASA MSIS-E-90 Atmosphere Model page. The composition is pretty constant up to about 100km elevation, i.e. above the mesosphere and well into the thermosphere. And up there, the pressure and density are so low that we're in fact in a light vacuum. As Wikipedia says, the mean free path for a gas molecule in the thermosphere is about 1km. From there on, the fraction of He increases, but the ratios of the other gases (N2, O2 and Ar) doesn't show any "stratification by molecular weight".

4. Helium, the lightest molecule, escape from earth for good.
Because its low molecular mass gives it a high coefficient of diffusion, so it leads the race to the top, and a larger fraction of the He can reach escape velocity, also due to its low molecular mass. The atmosphere isn't a closed system at equilibrium, and there's also quite a bit of chemistry going on e.g. in the stratosphere where oxygen is continuously converted into ozone.

5. I am not talking about gas under pressure in a confined space(tank). It is about FREE moving one.
Pressure won't affect a gas' diffusion qualitatively, only quantitatively. The diffusion coefficient is roughly proportional to the pressure, but it isn't affected in any fundamental way.
 
Fisrtly I never mentioned bad air anywhere, Secondly temperature changes is going to influence the pressure of the cyclinder, basic stuff they cover in OW trainng. So you dont need to fill a a cyclinder to alter the pressure.

And your point is? How much influence does a 30°C change have?
 
And your point is? How much influence does a 30°C change have?

10-15 bar increase. You should revisit your OW training......
 
10-15 bar increase.
P1/T1 = P2/T2, or P2 = P1*T2/T1

Assume T1 = 20 °C, T2 = 50 °C, i.e. 293K and 323K respectively.

P1 = 200 bar => P2 = 200*323/293 = 220 bar, i.e. a 20 bar increase (10%)
P1 = 232 bar => P2 = 232*323/293 = 255 bar, i.e. a 23 bar increase (10%)
P1 = 300 bar => P2 = 300*323/293 = 330 bar, i.e. a 30 bar increase (10%).

You should revisit your OW training......
You should revisit your high school physics...

And BTW, if you start involving real gas calculations (vdW equation), you'll be looking at a 15-16% increase.
 
Thanks for the calculation, I never bothered making one.
 
Cycling through those 30b is not going to kill a tank in a few years imo. And if it was stored inside, it hardly felt any change.
 

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