Are e-cig's safe around oxygen tanks?

[heather]

Hello all,

My Grandma will be coming home from the hospital soon with an oxygen tank. She is a light smoker and she was in hospital for heart problems. I know it's best not to smoke anything, but, I think the e-cig might help her with her anxiety issues. So, it wont blow up right?

[HaploVoss]

Well, it is still and electronic device for 1, it has a coil that gets cherry red hot 2, and nearly pure oxygen is one of the most flammable / atmospheric catalyst gases on the planet.

As long as you turn off the tank, and put the mask down to the side first - I don't see the problem. If she is using the nose tubes and wants/needs to leave the oxygen on at all times, I would be reluctant to vape away.

Even with it cranked up to correct flow, I think the likelyhood is probably infinitely small. Next to no chance anything would happen. However if it were my Granny - that's enough of a chance I wouldn't take it.

My .02

Take care,
- Hap

[LadyPamela]

My mother was at home with Hospice and I taking care of her and she had oxygen. The Hospice nurse warned my father about smoking around oxygen, which my father found to be very insulting. My father was a very, very intelligent man, a genius really, and he was disgusted that a medical professional was furthering the myth that oxygen was a flamable substance and you shouldn't have flame near it.

Oxygen is not flammable. Oxygen WILL cause a flame to burn more, hotter, obviously because the pre-existing flame feeds on the oxygen. It's not going to ignite like gasoline vapor from a spark or heat source.

I can't post an url yet but if you search on "is oxygen flammable" you will probably get an Ask The Scientist link to an explanation.

[thewomenfolk]

My mother is on Hospice care now with Oxygen and the technician told me the same thing, that most people are scared to death about smoking around oxygen...but not to worry, that it'd probably just make the end of the cig burn brighter. He said it was best not to smoke in her room, but that Oxygen isn't flammable.

[malyden]

http://www.dps.state.vt.us/fire/codes/fsf_14.pdf

Oxygen is not flammable, but it can cause other materials
that burn to ignite more easily and to burn far more
rapidly.

[kcr]

Not sure if this helps, but my dentist wanted a demonstration of a new e-cig in the room where the nitrous is (it is only in one of the rooms) and he wasn't worried that it would cause a problem.

He knew what they were and how they worked.