Swede Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 Yeah I do understand, when you add moisture to the equation, I think all bets are off. The suitability to 100 degrees depends I think upon a sealed, airtite, and dry chemical in a protected container. If moisture cannot gain any access, that is a vastly better situation. Water goes in, leaches out, soaks a flammable material with oxidizer, then come the high temps... creates situations of possible spontaneous combustion.
BLAST420 Posted June 4, 2008 Posted June 4, 2008 ESHHH!!! I think I will just continue to keep my strong oxidizors in the house!!! controlled tempature and enviroment
al93535 Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 You are 100% completely safe storing everything in the garage. If you live in a high humidity area, the nitrates will cake up faster, but thats about it. Store all of your chemicals in ziplock bags inside a plastic tub if possible, if not then in the ziplock bags at least. You should be much more worried about keeping a clean area to work then the temperature of the space. You have nothing to worry about, all of the chemicals at my work are stored just like that. Heh, actually they are not airtight either....
TheSidewinder Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 Blast, since you're new here, just so you know, Al runs a pyrotechnics business. He knows what he's talking about.
BLAST420 Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 O thats great to hear!!! thanks sidewinder Yea I am happy to hear this information Al!! I just purchased a nice organzizer with large drawers(3) I was going to use this for every thing but ..lol it filled up quick! So I am going to use it for everthing fuels,binder, misc chemicals, tubes, tools, scale......on and on and then I purchased a seperate drawer to give a bit more seperataion for all my oxidizers to go in!! And ALL my chemicals are inside big bags which are inside an airtight container so it looks like I am in the clear here!!! Thanks for the advice
Swede Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 Ziplocs are good, but I've found I like heavier and plain poly bags a bit more, with twist ties. I think the problem with ziplocs is the zipper portion can grab chems, and they don't seem to want to open nicely. But with a plain bag in a tub, you can roll the bag over the rim of the tub, leaving the chem wide open for scooping or spooning. When done, a twist tie seals the bag, the bag itself tucked in, then the lid goes on the bucket or tub. Bags - there is a really nice heavy duty bag available at stores that sell paint guns. It is a liner for the paint cup on the gun, and it keeps the paint cup clean. Thick, heavy plastic, and immune to most chemical attack. Harbor freight I know has them. Twist ties can be bought on a bulk spool with a built-in cutter at many lawn and garden centers. I like to be able to lift the bag out of the tub when I want, and keeping the tub clean allows you to reuse the tub for other chems.
TheSidewinder Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 Agreed, that's a better storage medium than Ziplocks. Thanks, Swede. I'm going to make note of those paint-cup bags and will look for them the next time I'm in Home Depot/Menards. The tubs I have from Skylighter/Firefox always had an inner bag that was heavy poly, with a twist-tie, and I still use them. I should have clarified that I use Ziplocks for things that I bought in bulk, which were delivered to me in less-than-ideal bagging (like plastic shopping bags, lol).
RubenE Posted June 5, 2008 Posted June 5, 2008 Yeah, I use ziplocks for some stuff too. As I write I'm storing around 80 lbs of potassium nitrate in ziplock bags in the garage. It's quite hot there these days. It has been around 95 degrees every day in there this week. I've been storing KNO3 this way a long time, and it works just fine.
Niter Posted July 13, 2008 Posted July 13, 2008 A convenient storage container would be PET plastic soda pop bottles. They are sturdy and almost unbreakable. Moreover, they are completely airtight. Polyethylene Terephtalate (PET), the clear plastic these bottles are made of are quite chem-resistant as plastics go. The usual pyrochemicals in their dry state are compatible with it. If your salt cakes the bottles are really easy to cut open. These are for storage, for actual usage wide-mouth jars are best, though plastic is to be preferred over glass as it won't shatter & scatter should it fall. RubenE, since you're storing a huge amount of KNO3, consider using 1 gallon milk jugs instead of ziplock bags. If you want to keep it dry though, go with PET bottles as ziplocks breathe air and water vapor.
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