Can an empty acetylene bottle be stored in the same bottle cage as a full one. Having gone through the Storage of cylinders code of practice 44, i can not see anywhere that says they must be stored seperately. From what i can gleen the COP44 classes a cylinder that is empty still as being full, as clearly there will be remnants inside the cylinder and it is still under pressure. So clearly it still presents a significant hazard. The only guidance i can see for seperation of gas cylinders is keeping the different classes of gas seperated, such as keeping your acetylene seperated from your oxygen bottle, in order to eliminate the risk of the two gases leaking in storage and mixing together, creating an explosive atmosphere.

I understand there are practices undertaken to seperate bottles to prevent an empty bottle being fitted onto a system in use and running the risk of one bottle leaking into the other. Surely if this is managed in a way that empty bottles are clearly marked as empty and segregated on one side of the cage and full on the other then the aim is being achieved.

I am looking for a clear definitive answer on this and if you could point me to where the answer came from i would very grateful.

Thank you

I was going to quote exactly that same reference as Ian - it will tell you all you need to know and yes full and empty containers should be kept separately.

Acetylene cylinders are never empty.

Common acetylene cylinders are different from all other cylinders in that they contain a porous filler material and a solvent (acetone or dimethylformamide, DMF).