Morning all, I hope everyone is well. I am wondering if anyone can offer some advice on the best way to store SO2 gas please; I know it should be in a well ventilated place and locked-up, however, would storing it outside require it to be protected from the weather? Are you allowed to store two different gases together? We have an LPG gas storage cage and will only have one full SO2 gas bottle at a time being held in there temporarily (a replacement for the one being used in the factory) and then an empty one (after the changeover has occured); can I use this as a temporary measure to store the gas bottle/cylinder? I want to get an actual gas storage cabinet, but at the moment I'm just trying to find out the specific measurements required and where to locate one from that isn't going to cost 'an arm and a leg'.

Furthermore, in order to store and handle gas cylinders, do you need to have some specialised training or is it just advisable? If we believe we have competent people within in the business to train others, then is the former required?

Thanks Stevedm.

"Where only small quantities of gas cylinders (a maximum of 10) are held in a small quantity store, refer to Section 5.14, it is not necessary to separate individual cylinders from each other". 5.14 "A small quantity store for cylinders will be capable of holding up to a total quantity of 10 gas cylinders. "

To make sure I haven't misinterpreted the above, please can you confirm if the above indicates that if storing up to 10 or less cylinders, the cylinder types (i.e. LPG, SO2 etc) doesn't matter (i.e. they can be stored in the same cage); is that true? Does this also include empty cylinders/bottles? Or does it mean 10 full bottles/cylinders? We don't store very many, and I would prefer to put them all in the same cage if possible, but at the same time, I don't want to misinterpret the ACOP and store them unsuitably.

I have my answer regarding the training, so thanks again for that.

Hi

We could do with more information such as:

•             How much Sulphur dioxide you are holding?

•             How big are the cylinders?

•             How many cylinders

•             What you are using them for? Small scale experiments or large scale industrial process

You should look at the BCGA Code of Practice 18:  the Safe Storage, Handling and Use

Of Special Gases which might give you some ideas.

You don’t need training but you need to be competent to do this safely. As has been said on this forum many times- training by itself does not guarantee competence.

Size Reference

Dimensions  (cm)

Gr. Weight  (kg)

Cylinder Contents  (kg)

A

39 x 27

16

4.7

B

54 x 32

32

11.0

D

91 x 32

57

23.0

E

125 x 38

108

46.5

F*

71 x 32

46

15

Assuming that this is the cylinder size.

We use one like in lab as feed to an instrument.  It is secured to the wall in the lab and we have no issues with FLT etc crashing into it which might be a problem for you.  The lab has a sulphur dioxide monitoring system and only competent technical staff are allowed to set it up and use it. 

Empty cylinders go back to the central cylinder store. They share an area with other cylinder types, including nitrogen and carbon dioxide.  We don’t keep LPG in this store, but that is not for reasons of Health and Safety just that we don’t use it in the labs. The store is well ventilated, separate from the main buildings and has a CO2 fire suppression system.   

Bump.