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I was wondering has anybody tried using N2O as dry suit inflation gas?

N2O, a.k.a. laughing gas, has a heat conduction coefficient of 176 compared to
162 for argon and 255 for air. The main advantage would probably be that the
gas liquefies at high pressures, and thereby reducing the size of the
inflation gas tank (a 0.5 liter tank to 200 bars would be adequate... =>
roughly 200 liters of gas).

There is a problem associated with N2O, although it is chemically fairly inert
(reacts vigorously with halogens, free hydrogen radicals...).  The main
problem is of course the highly narcotic effect of the gas. It would obviously
be very dangerous to inhale N2O by mistake during a dive. I guess there is a
probability of this happening (especially using a FFM), as it is not all
uncommon for gas from the suit to escape into the hood... The question is if
this gas then could escape into the mask, and that the diver then possibly
could inhale it. I have no clues what the effects of N2O are under pressure
and what quantities are needed to produce the narcotic effect.
Another problem is availability. N2O is cheap, but it's usage might require
some special permits in some countries. Personally I don't think it would be
very wise to use N2O as an inflation gas, I'm just curious :^)

-j-

--
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 Jonas Juselius                       e-mail...: jonas@ch*.he*.fi*  
                                      voice....: 191 40188 
 P.O. Box 55/ Department of Chemistry GSM......: 040 506 6599 
 FIN-00014 University of Helsinki     fax......: 191 40169 
 FINLAND                              http://www.chem.helsinki.fi/~jonas/   
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