Good morning Mythbusters, All my life I have been around doctors hospitals and places where people are on oxygen. I am on oxygen now. I keep hearing that if I smoke while on oxygen I will blow up my entire apartment building. Personally, I know better or when you light a camp fire the earth would blow up.

The fact is: You can only do this if you are in an oxygen saturated environment. ie. an oxygen tent or some other highly contained super oxygenated place.

I would like to see Buster sitting on a cliff over looking the cement truck blast site having a cigarette or a cigar ... then have him sitting inside an oxygen tent, or maybe a private home on the bomb range.. like the house built for water heater rockets.

Jim, Poet Rider

Presumably, you're on oxygen because your lungs can't extract enough oxygen from ordinary air as it is? Have you given any thought to quitting smoking?

quote:

Originally posted by Poet Rider:
The fact is: You can only do this if you are in an oxygen saturated environment. ie. an oxygen tent or some other highly contained super oxygenated place.

Or perhaps like right in front of the output from an oxygen supply such as what is currently attached to your face? How far away is your nose from your mouth?

The fact is: You are not too bright and it cost you your ability to breath normally. It certainly cost you years of your life. Don't ignore common sense and burn your face off because you don't understand more oxygen = more burny.

1. Phage = Hilarious
2. If it has no danger, why would buster need to be at the bomb range and not in the shop?
3. There is a super-oxygenated place close to you...your nose perhaps? Where the oxygen is being force-fed?
4. Even though I'm a a smoker I still have to agree with the other two. It's time to quit smoking. Dying because of lung disease is one thing, dying because you melted your face off is another.

If the oxygen tube slips or malfunctions and a jet of oxygen hits the cigarette it will burst violently into flames. It's not an explosion per se but it can cause serious injury to the face and/or start a larger fire in clothing, bedding or furniture. If the larger fire melts the oxygen tube then you have a very serious situation.

People have quite definitely killed themselves by mixing oxygen and lit cigarettes.

I have made this posting for several reasons. I had tested what would happen if you open the oxygen line directly in front of the lighter.. is does nothing even as close as half an inch away. I do agree that people have died while smoking and on oxygen, however it only happened while they were in a very contained and oxygen saturated space.

I have also discussed this with several people in the business of distributing oxygen, and several welders that also smoke. All of them have agreed that it is not possible to blow up while smoking on oxygen.

If it were the case that you would do that, then simply being on earth would not be possible since we have many wild fires going around the world at any given time. Your thinking that the small amounts of oxygen that are released from the oxygen tanks that people wear are enough to completely fill a room or building do not hold air ... the earth is surrounded by an oxygen rich atmosphere, and if your thinking would cause the person to explode .. then the entire earth would have exploded when the first lightning strike that ever caused a fire would have wiped out the planet several million years ago.

I do appreciate these comments. Please keep them coming... but keep in mind that there has to be a contained amount of oxygen .. much more than exists in one's nose.

Am I correct in assuming that you are on 2-3 litters of O2 per minute?

If so I don't think the concern is that the 2-3 liters per minute will cause you to blow up, but a leak in the tank. Having worked in a hospital I have seen these tanks leak quite often. It's a liability and thus they don't allow smoking anywhere near them.

The reason your lighter doesn't burn faster or hotter when exposed to a higher oxygen saturation is because it only releases a set amount of fuel at a time. You can add more oxygen it has no effect on the release of the fuel that is burning.

When in an oxygen tent everything in that tent becomes a fuel source. That means sheets, bedding, pillows, and plastic will all catch fire more easily and burn much faster in an oxygen rich environment.

In an oxygen tent there is nothing to limit the release of the fuel. It's all right there waiting to burn. If you limit the rate of fuel delivery such as in a lighter then it can only burn so fast.

So in short you can only burn yourself and die if your tank has a leak. Witch considering you will be on oxygen for the rest of your life odds are eventually you will get a leaky tank.

You really don't have a clue as to what you are talking about.

quote:

If it were the case that you would do that, then simply being on earth would not be possible since we have many wild fires going around the world at any given time. Your thinking that the small amounts of oxygen that are released from the oxygen tanks that people wear are enough to completely fill a room or building do not hold air ... the earth is surrounded by an oxygen rich atmosphere, and if your thinking would cause the person to explode .. then the entire earth would have exploded when the first lightning strike that ever caused a fire would have wiped out the planet several million years ago.

The atmosphere is only 21% oxygen around the earth not 100% as would be coming from a compressed oxygen tank. Or if it is an oxygen concentrator, Typical units have cycles of around 20 seconds, and allow for a continuous supply of oxygen at a flow rate of up to approximately five liters per minute (LPM) at concentrations anywhere from 50 to 95 % the operate by removing the nitrogen from the room air.
portable oxygen concentrators. Typically, these produce less than one liter per minute (LPM) of oxygen and use some version of pulse flow or demand flow to deliver oxygen only when the patient is inhaling.

The oxygen concentrators have the advantage of not being as dangerous as oxygen cylinders, which can, if ruptured or leaking, greatly increase the combustion rate of a fire.

Highly concentrated sources of oxygen promote rapid combustion. Fire and explosion hazards exist when concentrated oxidants and fuels are brought into close proximity; however, an ignition event, such as heat or a spark, is needed to trigger combustion. Oxygen itself is not the fuel, but the oxidant. Combustion hazards also apply to compounds of oxygen with a high oxidative potential, such as peroxides, chlorates, nitrates, perchlorates, and dichromates because they can donate oxygen to a fire.

And the only explosive oxygen is the following Liquid oxygen spills, if allowed to soak into organic matter, such as wood, petrochemicals, and asphalt can cause these materials to detonate unpredictably on subsequent mechanical impact is the only conditions that oxygen goes boom. As it super oxygenates the organic material into a super rapid combustion under subsequent impact Or goes boom!

Google is your friend

glen

Finally two people are understanding the way oxygen tanks and concentrators work. Mjoat, and Gem82 need to be congratulated. They are both admitting that the small amounts of oxygen coming from the nasual cannulas will not blow up on their own as the Doctors around the country would have you believe. It takes a much HIGHER concentration to cause the explosion that doctors try telling people will come from them smoking while on O2. That is clearly the myth I am speaking about ... Doctors claim that you will blow up if you smoke while on a tank .. it is not the O2 from the nasal cannula .. it would have to be from a leaking tank. The idea you can BLOW UP from that is farcical and I for one would like to see it busted by the best .. first have a way of making a smoking machine .. and making a head to have the nasal cannula be set up with, making sure the nasal system works to breath in and out. and see if in a general size room anything happens... NO IT WONT!... now as Gem82 and Mjoat have pointed out ... saturate the room with oxygen ... and they light the ligther in the same room ... .the KABOOM !!!!!!!!!!
come on .. lets see another room blow up !!!!!!!!!!

Its not the doctors its the misuse of terms by people in general that cause problems and the per occupation by youngen's with trying to make things go boom and using the X word when there is a catastrophic failure of some item or thing due to any number of reasons. the bottom line with oxygen in use you should not smoke or use an open flame as any addition of oxygen will cause the flames of oxcidation to burn faster, hotter etc.
When smoking was more common people in oxygen tents before the wide spread use of the nasal delivery systems the amount used was higher the area covered larger. Smoking would cause a large woosh and fire to the party inside and out side the tent.
Which was a 3foot by 4 foot by 4 foot high clear plastic tent.
When it was used at home they can and did cause injuries and death and burn homes down by not venting the area before lighting up.
And there is no myth in that.

This seems like an ideal myth for MB to tackle. It involves a widely held misconception and it may involve explosions, or at least very spectacular rapid combustion.

Thank you LeeSW, and Mjoat, I appreciate all the research and the explanations. I am grateful for your recommendation to have the MB team use it as it is filled with things they love doing.