Nitrogen as onboard air

[diesel72]

Is there any reason not to use nitrogen as onboard air? I have a 40 cu ft tank and regulator set up to fill tires, and it wouldn't be much of a stretch to hook my air tools to it. Like CO2, nitro is stored at HIGH pressures (1500-2200psi), so my 40 cu ft tank holds "just a little bit"

[Toyota_Jim]

Works good for air tools. I use it in my inch dr impact. when on the job. Got a small compressor but not big enough to run the impact some times...

[ChicksDigWagons]

Comparing Nitrogen to CO2 is like comparing apples to oranges.

For the same sized tank, CO2 will fill significantly more tires than Nitrogen. However, CO2 is stored at much lower pressures than Nitrogen. CO2 is something like 900psi vapor pressure at room temp, but holds this pressure until all the liquid has evaporated and it will then drop on the way to an empty tank. Nitrogen is usually stored at up to 3000psi, but will start dropping pressure until the tank is empty.

The good part about Nitrogen is it won't freeze your air tools, and it a dry clean air. CO2 is generally regarded as a dirty air. The drawbacks to CO2 can be fixed for the most part with an expansion chamber and a good filter. In my opinion CO2 is more practical, but Nitrogen can work.

[Kartracer55]

Comparing Nitrogen to CO2 is like comparing apples to oranges.

For the same sized tank, CO2 will fill significantly more tires than Nitrogen. However, CO2 is stored at much lower pressures than Nitrogen. CO2 is something like 900psi vapor pressure at room temp, but holds this pressure until all the liquid has evaporated and it will then drop on the way to an empty tank. Nitrogen is usually stored at up to 3000psi, but will start dropping pressure until the tank is empty.

The good part about Nitrogen is it won't freeze your air tools, and it a dry clean air. CO2 is generally regarded as a dirty air. The drawbacks to CO2 can be fixed for the most part with an expansion chamber and a good filter. In my opinion CO2 is more practical, but Nitrogen can work.


VP=nRT Whos up for some stoichiometry? :D

[ChicksDigWagons]

VP=nRT Whos up for some stoichiometry? :D


lol. I didn't say I was a scientist, but I know for one thing that gas laws mean squat for CO2 past about 830psi when it condenses to liquid form (assuming room temp). Then you're dealing with sometime entirely different and I'm in no qualification to really explain the finer points but it won't stop me from being an internet jockey and trying. :D

A 40cf High pressure tank and a 10Lbs CO2 bottle are roughly the same physical dimensions IIRC.

.1234 pounds of liquid CO2 makes 1CF of gas. So a 10lbs bottle will convert to roughly 80cf of gas. So figure about double the gas volume for CO2 out of a similarly sized bottle.

I'm sure I've greatly simplified this, but thats the jist of it. And in any case, if you do some reading up on Ideal Gas Law, you'll find why they call it ideal. Ideally it'd be accurate. :flipoff2: But thats assuming you're working with an ideal gas in the first place. And even gases that behave ideally at low pressures often change their behavior at high pressures. In our case, Co2 is a very non-ideal gas even at low pressures (and high pressures kinda don't exist :D ). Nitrogen in a relatively ideal gas, but somewhat skews off the path at high pressures (though not enough to really effect the topic of this thread).

Again, I'm no chemist but I hope this satisfies your stoichiometric jollies :smokin:

[ChicksDigWagons]

On the other hand, your post may have been in favor of mine...

Kinda hard to tell :flipoff2:

[4xFreak]

Nitrogen works great for air tools, but it doesnt last long. I havent used CO2 for air tools, so I cant compare.