Can one breathe industrial oxygen

If the tank was full of acelelene at atmospheric pressure before filling with oxygen the ppm od acelelene in the breathing gasses would be the absolute least of your problems, as pure acetelene in it's free form is extremely unstable at anything over about 16psi. Combine that characteristic of acetelene with 100% oxygen environment and you won't have a TANK, much-less an unbreathable mixture.

Also, putting CO into a highly pressurized pure oxygen atmosphere for any time would LIKELY end up with an exothermic reaction producing CO2.

Why is acetylene even in this discussion, it is kept in a special bottle in suspension in acetone.How would you get acetylene contamination in an oxy bottle?

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MT O2 cyl @ 0 psi connected to a torch with a blocked tip and no (or non functioning) anti flashback check valves could result in acet moving into the O2 side of the system, perhaps all the way to the O2 tank. More often results in flashback and destroyed hoses (and regulators), but there is always the potential for something worse. The difference in normal working pressures will more often result in O2 travelling up the acet side but as always YMMV. This is a good reason not to try to get the very last bit of gas from any cylinder and to keep your torch tip out of the mud. Usually when used for cutting the O2 cyl will be changed while it still contains greater than the max acet operating pressure, but the acet side usually is operating well below the pressure of the O2 side. When welding or heating, the pressures are more likely to be similar and a large rosebud heating tip will often demand more acet delivery than a small or low acet cylinder can deliver, which is why acet manifolding of multiple cylinders is often recommended. Cold can also reduce the delivery rate of acet.

Acetylene is a very unstable high energy gas and oxygen supports rapid and vigorous combustion (of almost anything). In isolation or even more so in combination (or proximity) they both require respect and careful handling.

Good luck, YMMV

Anything that goes boom, causes shards of glass and metal to fly, and leaves you dazed, bleeding, blackened, and saying, "huh?", is generally serious.

Steve

Gas washing you mean.

  "Industrial" or oxygen meant for purposes such as use in a cutting/welding torch is often held to higher standards than "medical" oxygen . One example is the allowable limit of moisture . In the real world it all comes from the same f***in' tank and there is absolutely no difference . Breath easy !

Same gas, different tank handling standards.

"The tanks are certified to be cleaned to a certain standard so that there are no impurities added to the gas by the tank itself. Welding oxygen is sold without that certification, and put into tanks that are not guaranteed to be that clean."

Do not breath 100% oxygen, it is not good for you. Do some research. Mikek

There is in practice no plausible way for industrial oxygen cylinders to be "contaminated" with another gas??? I'm thinking of oxy-propane cutting. There are any other uses which could conceivably back-flow a contaminating noxious / toxic gas into oxygen cylinders?

"In extremis", in a situation where many people would die without getting oxygen (we couldn't possibly conceive what that would be, of course (currently in the time of the "covid19" pandemic)), and there being negligible chance of one single person being negatively affected in any way (?) by breathing "industrial" oxygen which would save their life, there would be immense coercive social forces to void the rule of insisting on "medically certified" oxygen for human medical need?

Someone with a high pressure pump like we had in the chem lab could transfer the remaining gas in their nearly empty cylinders into a single one so they could send the others out for refill. Who knows what that pump was previously used for?

That's also an issue with second-hand laboratory vacuum pumps.

I would expect if you left the valve open then the atmosphere and whatever it contained would get into the cylinder by it breathing through natural atmospheric pressure and temperature changes and over time you would have air in the cylinder. I never leave the valve open even on an empty but I can't vouch for everyone. I only have experience of UK industrial bottle, I don't know if medical are different.

It is true that pure oxygen can cause problems over time, but sometimes, it will save your life. If you have carbon monoxide poisoning, for example, pure oxygen is exactly what you need.

Patients that need pure oxygen for a long time, will, if possible, be given normal air for a few minutes every hour, as this greatly reduces the risk of side effects.

I know pilots who filkl their breathing oxygen tanks from their welding tanks and have done it for years

Do they swap cylinders or have their own refilled?

Richard Smith snipped-for-privacy@void.com on Fri, 27 Mar 2020 11:56:55 +0000 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

If you have backflow into an OXY tank, you got other issues. Like bad regulators on both lines, and little to no O2 in the tank.

That said, 100% O2 being a strong oxidizer,I'm not sure what sort of toxic gases could survive in such an atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide comes to mind, and being condensible to a liquid like propane it's particularly easy to move from one tank to another.

or to a scrounged cylinder meant for a different gas.

"Jim Wilkins" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com on Sat, 28 Mar 2020 18:11:34

-0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Can you fit a propane regulator to an Oxy tank? I've been under the impression that Oxy tanks are "backwards" to prevent any cross connect.

Likely you could if you changed the connection stem but all the propane regs I use are rated to 20 bar and the oxygen ones to 300 bar so it wouldn't be safe and the safety pressure valve on the propane reg would vent most of the O2. UK O2 bottles are all commonly 300 bar these days from the major suppliers, good for reg sales I guess when they uprated from IIRC 230bar, nut thread is right hand, fuel gas left hand to prevent mix up. There are newer ones here that do 400 bar but they have built in regs AFAIK as do some lower pressure bottles from certain suppliers.

If you have a thread-cutting lathe and some large enough bar stock you -can- fit anything to anything. The Arc-Zone adapter page lists some CGA thread sizes and RH or LH.

I'm not suggesting you -should-, just that it's wise to check second-hand equipment that may have been improperly repaired or modified.