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Posted By Kris
I understand that spontaneous combustion can occur with poorly discarded oily rags. However, can the same occur if the rags have been used to wipe up petrol or diesel? Also, what if paper towels are used?
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Posted By Clarke Kent the 2nd
Seen as the fuels you mention are more flammable and have a considerably lower flash point than 'oily rags' i would assume the answer is yes
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Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Kris
As I understand the phenomenon, a chemical reaction which releases heat is needed for spontaneous combustion to occur. If the rag is screwed up, the heat builds up, the reaction gets faster, releases more heat and eventually produces enough heat for the rag to burst into flames. I don't think that the nature of the substrate (rag, paper towel, etc) is particularly important.
While the evaporation of petrol can, of course, produce a flammable atmosphere, this needs a source of heat to ignite.
Paul
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Posted By Chris Packham
The following is a personal communication from a contact in Australia which I thought might be relevant. He is writing about d-limonene, the oil extracted from the peel of citrus fruits. This is an irritant, but when exposed to the atmosphere can oxidise.
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“Agent Orange”
Yes, it definitely oxidises when exposed to air. To the extent that like linseed oil, discarded d-limonene soaked cleaning rags can undergo spontaneous combustion if they are in large enough mass.
It was widely used on our site as a ‘safe’ electrical cleaning solvent, for a short period, to replace chlorinated solvents. We had three fires in large rubbish bins (skips in the UK?) in as many weeks, before we worked out what was going on.
In the same period we also had someone who was carrying a leaking bottle of the stuff around in their pocket suffer a skin burn in a sensitive spot.
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Chris
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Posted By The toecap
Spontaneous combustion is the self-ignition of a material. Spontaneous combustion starts when oxidation occurs within a substance, which releases heat. If the heat does not escape from the material, and the temperature of the material rises above its ignition point, spontaneous combustion will occur.
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