New hose inspection

So, I got in some light and ultralight t grade hoses for my oxy-propane setup (new), and noticed a little smudge on the cone inside the fitting on one. I wiped it off and it looked like it could potentially be grease. I remember hearing it mentioned that grease + oxygen could cause a boom... but I wasn't sure how paranoid I should be. I shot an email to the company that sold them, but haven't heard back.

So, is it ok to just wipe it off? Should I use a dab of rubbing alcohol? acetone? How careful do I have to be not to get that on the hose itself? Should I be cleaning all of these fittings with more than a cloth? If it matters risk-wise, I'm using a concentrator, so no high pressure tanks.

Thanks guys. I'm so excited to get this thing going! I'll post pictures of the setup when I'm done.

If you burn something in pure oxygen it will yield the same energy of combustion as it would have if it were burnt in air, it'll just do it faster.

If your smudge is small enough for the energy of combustion not to be a problem then the faster rate isn't either.

Gotcha, that makes sense. So the concern would be more if someone dropped the end of the hose in a blob of grease, something that could damage the regulator or hose if it went all at once. I'm assuming that I shouldn't worry about that sort of thing tiny smudges wiped off with a cloth for fuel either since.. well, it's fuel without an oxygen source.

Thanks! Being newer I'm pretty paranoid, so knowing exactly what I'm worried about happening really helps. That way if something comes up again, I won't have to freak out ;-)

Just waiting on the oxygen concentrator now. I've got serious "Christmas Morning Syndrome".

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Originally Posted by veryredbike

So the concern would be more if someone dropped the end of the hose in a blob of grease,

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The concern is really that the same mechanism that creates the higher reaction rate also potentiates the reaction so things that you would not normally think of as highly flammable at room temperature suddenly are. My favourite spectacular illustration of this is titanium swarf - in pure oxygen it goes up like a flare.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mark Kelly

The concern is really that the same mechanism that creates the higher reaction rate also potentiates the reaction so things that you would not normally think of as highly flammable at room temperature suddenly are. My favourite spectacular illustration of this is titanium swarf - in pure oxygen it goes up like a flare.

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Gotcha. So in the case that some oil or grease in the hose went up and ruptured the hose, all sorts of other stuff could go up easily.