I write this in response to this linked article. In the article, a young lady supposedly caused an explosion by using her phone near a cooking gas, ultimately resulting in her death. While this is one of the latest news regarding a gas explosion cause by a phone, it certainly won't be the last. Apparently, a lot of Nigerians (and many across the world too!) are incredibly misinformed about the relationship between gas explosions and phones. You could blame this on a dearth of information available to them or on their wish to simply justify many of their nagging fantasies about negligence that could result from the luxury of using a phone. Whatever the case, it now seems important to put some useful information out there for general consumption.

Firstly, I'll just tell you straight up. Cellphones don't cause gas explosions. How do I know this? Tons of research and studies say so. Hold on a minute, I'll show you later. Why then do many think that cellphones and kitchen gas explosions mix? Clearly because they have conveniently extended their reasoning from rumours of supposed explosions caused at gas stations by cellphones. It also doesn't help that there are now noticeable signs at filling stations warning customers to keep their phones away while filling car tanks. But are all these warranted? It doesn't seem so.

The lower explosive limit for butane is about 1.4%; for propane, it is 2.1%; and for natural gas (methane) 4.4%. Their respective upper explosive limits are 8.4%, 9.5% and 15%. This means between these two values, these gases are very flammable, they burn easily. Below the lower limit, they will be too lean to burn even if they exist as vapor in the air. Above these limits they are too rich to burn. That means, though they may fill the room, they may still not not burn in the presence of a spark! Wow, a spark!

Now, a spark is not all it takes for gas to burn. To have fire (or an explosion, if you will), you need oxygen which is usually present in air, the fuel source and an ignition source (the spark!). You must have these three to have a fire. If only two are present, you'll only have a condition ripe for fire. However, as long as you do not introduce the third source, you will never have a fire. One method often employed by fire fighters is to smoother a fire by depriving it of air, i.e. taking away one of the components responsible, thereby killing the fire. In the same vien, some fires cannot be killed with water because the oxygen in water (Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen, duh!) simply continues to fuel the fire.

Now, that we are clear on what makes a fire, let's look at the spark component. The general claim is that cellphones can introduce the spark required for fuel to burn, provided the remainder two component are already present. That's generally untrue. Cellphones work with radio waves. In their simplest form, they consist of a radio transmitter and a radio receiver. When you talk on a cellphone, your voice is converted into electrical signals and laid on a radio wave which then travels (at the speed of light!) through numerous BTS stations to the receiver. Similarly, your friend's voice at the other end travels to you in the form of radio waves and is then converted from its electrical form into sound you can hear. Now, these cellphone waves, as they are called, are simply too weak to cause an ignition. They are electromagnetic waves with such little energy that they are unable to ignite any air-vapor mixture. Little wonder, the myth of a cellphone causing an ignition has been widely debunked across the world in several experiments. The Discovery channel program, Mythbusters, roundly discredited this in one of their mini-episodes. Experts have also weighed in and completely [url=ttp://www.nydailynews.com/autos/cell-phones-don-pump-fires-experts-article-1.1123228]trashed[/url] this ongoing myth.

Now, I hear you screaming inside, "but all these stories can't just be false na", "I know that woman from osun state who was killed at a gas station when she tried to use her phone."

Calm down! There is an explanation, and it's called "static electricity". Static electricity is like the real electricity you know, except when you use it to power a bulb, for example, it may just flash the bulb once and that's it. It's a static form of the same electricity you are familiar with. Back in secondary school, we had a fun experiment we often used to demonstrate the existence of static electricity. We would run a comb through our hair severally and then use it to pick up tiny bits of paper scattered on a table. You too can try it! Take a small comb. Comb your hair for a few minutes. Then take an A4 paper and tear it into very tiny bits. Attempt to pick them up with the comb, and voila! you demonstrate the use of energy.

But static electricity doesnt' stop there. It can be even more dangerous. Shifting your leg through the ground could produce an amount of static energy enough to cause an ignition. Similarly, going into your car and exiting while at the gas station could also lead to the generation of some static electricity. Acts as simple as standing up from a chair, attempting to hug a friend or trying to open a door knob can introduce shocks from static electricity. Some of you might in fact have already experienced such subtle shocks from hitting your elbow on a chair or trying to open a door. Static electricity often concentrates at a point and is just waiting to be quickly discharged once it gets the chance. This video shows quite clearly some cases where static electricity could appear. And because this form of energy is all around us, it is no surprise that it can be responsible for an explosion when it finds the ripe environment to cause one. According to one news source, "some experts have found charges of up to 60,000 volts on people who'd gotten in and out of their cars while refueling". Such amount of energy could be sufficient enough to provide a spark that will lead to fire, provided the environment is ripe.

In the case of that woman I mentioned above, it seems very likely that the environment was already charged with enough air-vapor mixture within the explosive limits of butane/propane, enough to ensure that any move anyone made outside of her car or around her was going to cause an explosion from the discharge of the static energy present. Unfortunately she was unlucky, as there would have been several other instances where static energy was present, but the other fire components were absent.

If we need to be worried about anything when we operate kitchen gas or visit the gas station, it shouldn't be our phone, though you clearly shouldn't be distracted by a phone call while buying fuel or operating anything as potentially lethal as a gas cooker. We should be worried more about static energy. When fire fighters approach a source of air-vapor mixture which has no fire yet, they tread carefully in order to not introduce any static form of electricity into the environment. That should be our approach. And there are several ways you can attempt to be more careful when you walk or work around gas sources. Those are the things you should learn! For one, ensure that other fire components (such as a ripe air-vapor mix) is completely absent, by securing all outlets and making sure there are no leaks. That alone will go a long way.

cc: Seun
cc: lalasticlala

Brilliant piece bro..

we got your message but one has to be more careful

so sad she lost her life

Wow... Thanks for the information.

I wish this will make FP.

After today's hustle, I can't read anything mors than 6 lines

The article details in which regard one has to be careful. We shouldn't misinform by claiming phones cause explosions.

ExAngel007:
we got your message but one has to be more careful

Thanks

ayenika1:
Brilliant piece bro..