Gas Bottle. What would happen if.....?

[emmitdb]

Greetings All,

I am aware that Butane is best left for the non winter months because of its inability to cope with cold weather.

What I would like to know from all those knowledgable people out there is this.
What would happen if a gas bottle. (lets say for ease of subject, suppose it was a Campingaz 907)was kept at a reasonable, say room temperature and was then insulated against the cold before use.

Just suppose it was given a close fitting jacket of polysterene foam. Would it continue to work in the cold weather until the effect of time and cold brought the temperature inside the bottle down or would it not work purely because of the cold weather.

Just a thought. Anyone got an answer.
I've posted this question elsewhere but also here to get a wider audience

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello emmitdb,

Your suggestion will work for a short while. but not over very long.
Inside the bottle you have liquefied and gaseous butane, held under pressure. The pressure is determined by the temperature of the bottle. The pressure is the result of the liquefied bas boiling and releasing gas vapour until the pressure is restored.The liquified butane will only boil provide the bulk of the liquid is at about 0C or above. Without the butane boiling it will not produce gas so there is no pressure this is often referred to as the gas freezing, though that word is completely wrong.

The other part of this matter is that as the butane boils it uses latent heat from the bulk of the liquefied gas to actaually boil, so when it boils it actually cools the bulk of the liqiuified butane causing it to reduce its temperature. Normally the bottle will drag heat from its surroundings to replenish the heat used to boil the gas, but if you insulate the bottle, the liquefied gas has no way getting more heat to keep the gas boiling.

As a result the more gas you use the quicker its temperature will fall and in your scenario it would quite quickly reach the point where there insufficient temperature for it continue producing gas. Incidentally it is exactly the same heat exchange process that is used to keep your caravan fridge working.

 

[forestgump]

if it dose help the bottle you may have problems from bottle ie regulator pipes ect but i may not gas enougth to get that far.