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> >Is air at 300 bar any less dangerous (from the explosion and dirty
> >cylinder viewpoint) than 31.5% O2 nitrox at 200 bar? [ie assumes the
> >pO2s identical]
> 
> Most [all?] chemical reactions run at rates given by the product of
> the concentrations of the constituents.  The implied assumption in
> the quoted text (above) is correct as far as I can see.  Now there
> could be differences in details involving the fill but that was not
> an issue here.

I've been asking the same question since the first nitrox workshop in 
Houston, and I have yet to get a satisfactory answer. Most chemical 
reactions are indeed a function of abundance of molecules (i.e., partial 
pressure) not percentage.  The only way that I could understand why air 
has a lower probability of combusting at 300 bar than pure O2 does at 60 
bar was if the N2 somehow buffered or interfered with the combustion 
reaction.

Then Harris Taylor sent me a really interesting article on O2 
combustion.  It was a tad over my head at the time I read it, but the 
gist I got was that combustion probability was a function of BOTH PO2 *AND* 
FO2.  I don't understand it at the molecular level, but there are lots of 
things I don't understand at the molecular level.

Rich

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