Is compressed oxygen explosive?

Question

If you compressed oxygen into a tidy space and ignited it would it explode, how violenly?

Answer 1

Contrary to popular opinion, oxygen does not burn, nor explode. Oxygen *supports* combustion. You can't "burn" something without oxygen. An explosion is simply a very rapid production of gases that form as a result of combustion.



The more you can concentrate the substance that is burning and the oxygen need for combustion, the faster will be the reaction and the more it will look like an explosion. So from that regard compressing the volume occupied by the oxygen and explosive, the faster will be the reaction and the bigger the boom.



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Far be it from me to criticize fellow responders, but "the700" is "out to lunch". Oxygen is classified as an oxidizer, not as a flammable gas. The700 says, "O2 appears to be agnitable/explosive at any percentage." It will support oxidation (i.e. burning) but oxygen itself does not burn.



Look at this MSDS sheet for oxygen. Scroll down to "DOT classification" and read the label that says NONFLAMMABLE GAS.

http://www.airgas.com/documents/pdf/001043.pdf

Answer 2

Compressed Oxygen

Answer 3

Oxygen cannot burn by itself. If you compress oxygen with something else, like kerosene or methane, it will definitely explode if ignited (or even without ignition, as compression causes heating).



With some kind of fuel, the strength is considerable, e.g. it is what normally happens in a piston engine; there the compression is about 10 to 1 but air (containing ~20% oxygen) is used instead of pure oxygen, the ration air/fuel is about 5/1.



Without fuel instead, the explosion would release somehow less energy than the amount which has been used to compress the gas (a fraction of energy is lost by the compressed gas cooling down).

Answer 4

As most others have pointed out, although it can strongly support combustion, in itself it is NOT explosive or combustible.



There is however a very important "almost" exception. I say "almost" because although it is NOT explosive on its own, there is an occasion (which has caught people out before) where it would almost SEEM that this is not the case:-



If you compress oxygen for storage and someone has oiled or greased the thread on the storage bottle, then very high pressure oxygen acting on oil CAN cause an explosion. Even as little as oil / grease from a mechanics hands are considered dangerous. This is why EVERY Oxygen Cylinder warns "DO NOT USE OIL ON THREADS" etc - as compressed oxygen and oil can (and usually will) result in explosive combustion of the oil.



As I say, the oxygen is still NOT explosive on its own, but many would consider an "empty bottle" with a trace of oil on the valve threads as being "just oxygen" right upto the moment that the oil explodes.

Answer 5

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RE:

Is compressed oxygen explosive?

If you compressed oxygen into a tidy space and ignited it would it explode, how violenly?

Answer 6

Yes. It transports as a flammable compressed gas by DOT regulations.

Every gas has a flmammable range. Oxygen is very wide, which makes it highly volitile. The thing with oxygen is the range is unkown, simply meaning that even at less than 1% up to 99.9% it will still ignite.

Most gases have a range that is too lean or too rich to ignite, like gasolene vapors, diesel vapors, silane, etc. O2 appears to be agnitable/explosive at any percentage.

The violence would depend on the container, how much was ocmpressed. If it was ocmpressed and cooled into it's liquid state, then it would not explode unles it was heated back into gas, and then the cointainer failed: this is called a "BLEVE" pronounced "blevie". Large amounts of gas, in a large container, would produce quite a large bomb. The contents would have to exceed the container's ability.

Answer 7

Oxygen itself isn't exposive - instead, it combines with other elements to make them burn or explode, so no, you can't "ignite" oxygen - but it is required to ignite other combustable materials. For example - you couldn't start a flame in space.



If you were to compress oxygen into a container and then rupture the container, the container would "explode" as the pressures violently equalise, but that's not a combustion.

Answer 8

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They aren't exactly explosive and they aren't oxygen. They use compressed air and if they're exposed to conditions extreme enough to cause them to rupture then the user is already long past caring.

Answer 9

Oxygen is flammable under normal circumstances. Compress it and there is even more of it available. The explosion would depend on how much compressed oxygen is available.

Answer 10

Unless you ignite the gas, it is not under normal conditions.