Difficult to find information about the toxicity of standard Primus camping gas online. Is it basically carbon monoxide? Thanks

you mean after it’s burned?

been a few deaths this year from people getting carbon monoxide poisoning when cooking in tents.

tha actual gas was quite popular for sniffing when I were a lad until someone local died.

Real Primus stoves use paraffin.

Safety sheets for the gas canisters are on the Primus web site – http://www.primus.eu/templates/pages/product.aspx?ItemId=38052#

The gas is a mix of butane / propane with an odorant (the gas itself doesn’t smell).

It is not toxic, per se.

But, anything that replaces the oxygen in the air that you breath could be fatal:
– normal air is 22% oxygen
– you start to feel dizzy below 19% oxygen
– unconciousness and death will ensue below around 12% oxygen

Carbon monoxide would be a product of incomplete combustion.

The safety data sheet is available here

Is there a specific reasoning behind you question?

propane/butane is not toxic. but since it is replacing oxygen in your lungs, high concentration is not good for you.

Dick beat me.

one of the tedious facts learnt on my plumbing course in the last few weeks.

Worried about burning stuff in tents but wasn’t sure whether it actually contained CO.

This is helpful – I understand better now. Thanks.

If you burn it inside an unventilated tent, you will eventually have a build up of carbon monoxide; CO is toxic.

Better get the flaps open if you plan to use it inside a tent.

high concentration is not good for you.

Just to be picky, it’s the low concentration of oxygen rather than the high concentration of gas that is not good for you.

doesn’t contain CO, but part of the combustion exhaust can be CO as well as CO2 and H2O. should not be burnt in confined and in vented spaces

unburnt butane is UK yoof’s inhaled solvent of choice

has no specific toxicity (unlike some other glues etc) but does kill a few people every year – more than other solvents but only because that’s what they use most

burning it generates carbon monoxide & you shouldn’t do it in a tent

doh, I’m on phone and dick is quicker on the draw than me 🙂

I worry about the state of basic education in this country. How can you NOT[/i] know that incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon leads to the production of CO?

😉

You mean
C3H8 + 5*O2 = 3*CO2 + 4*H2O

isn’t taught in Kindergarden any more?

I blame Thatcher! 😉

In the case of tent use, more like:

2 C3H8 + 7 O2 = 2 CO2 + 2 CO + 2 C + 8 H2O + dead tent occupant.

😀

Or indeed 2C3H8 + 7O2 = 6CO + 8H2O 😉

That must be the first time I’ve balanced a chemical formula since school!

[EDIT] Dammit, beaten by woody!

Nah, sooty as owt propane.

Just ask Hank

Mountaineers frequently burn butane/propane in tents.

They also quite often get CO poisoning, but it’s that or die from dehydration.

could they not take a chimney up with with them?

The problem with CO is that it is taken up by your blood in preference to oxygen, that is why it is dangerous at the ppm level.

Anything that displaces available oxygen inhaled can suffocate you – why a for example a delugde halon fire system can kill you.

Hydrocarbons are narcotic if inhaled and will harm or kill you if you ‘overdose’