Lacquer Thinner + Electrical Outlet

[fortyonethirty]

This is a question only. No accidents have happened yet. Just curiosity.

What would happen if lacquer thinner was spilled into an electrical outlet?

Imagine a power strip mounted under the edge of a work bench, then a container of lacquer thinner spills and a small waterfall of solvent runs into the outlets.

Fire? Explosion? Nothing? I'm not ready to do any experiments.

[prop-doctor]

if it shorts out yes,,,, FIRE !! mayb EXplosion !! or both ! *
thats were saftey first comes to play
reaD AND FOLLOW ALL steps

yeah yeah I know put cap on .. myself would not have a power strip under my bench
not much I can say, but ,,,, DON'T spill
may want to rethink work bench design ..BE SAFE

[razer]

This Lacquer thinner you speak of is petroleum?
Petrol is anionic; it does not carry ions - it is dielectric.
Nothing would happen unless the thinner thins the plastic and two oppositely conductors touch.
You probably have an electric fuel pump (a brushed dc motor) in your car's gasoline tank.
Power distribution transformers have oil in them for cooling.

[assassin_works]

nothing unless a very large spark would happen then maybe a fire but i doubt it

[Bistineau]

[quote=razer;580673
You probably have an electric fuel pump (a brushed dc motor) in your car's gasoline tank.
Power distribution transformers have oil in them for cooling.[/QUOTE]

The electric fuel pump motor installed in the tank usually use the fuel running thru the motor for cooling purposes. But with the absense of oxygen in the fuel system there is no BOOM. To cause the explosion there has to be three things come together at the same time, fuel source(gasoline) oxygen and ignition source(sparks). Remove any one of these components and no BOOM. In the case of the fuel pump in the gas tank, there is fuel present and spark but no oxygen, no boom. I have changed out in tank fuel pumps before and cut apart the old pump just to see how the internal construction was made. I was surprised to find the fuel passed over the windings in the motor, didn't seem safe to me. But I had already driven this truck more than 100,000 miles with no adverse problems. There are 100,000s of vehicles on the road today with this same set up.
Same thing with the power transformers, sealed up, oil filled, no oxygen, no boom(no spark either).

[Bistineau]

Originally Posted by assassin_works

nothing unless a very large spark would happen then maybe a fire but i doubt it

With the proper fuel/air mix, it doesn't have to be "a very large spark", just a spark of any size can cause a problem. In this case since it's not confined in an enclosure it would just cause a flame and not a BOOM.

[rhunt]

Easy test. Take two tablespoons of lacquer thinner, put in cup, non conducting, take old lamp cord(zip cord) leave plug on one end and cut other end to form a y, strip off about an 1/2" of insulation. Put the cup with the thinner outside, plug the cord in outlet and place in cup without shorting the ends of the cord together. See what happens. Good luck!! Bob

[razer]

Originally Posted by Bistineau

Same thing with the power transformers, sealed up, oil filled, no oxygen, no boom(no spark either).

Sure. No doubt that the lack of a readily available oxidizer is important, but the main point here is that oils, and I would expect oil derived products in general, such as plastic, are dielectric (non-conductive).

If an oil based liquid were to bridge an electric gap, it would not cause a spark. If something else did cause a spark and ignited the oil, well.. thats really a different matter since the oil could have been nearby and still been ignited from the spark.

[Rick V]

Originally Posted by razer

...Nothing would happen unless the thinner thins the plastic and two oppositely conductors touch...

I agree; laquer thinner is aggressive stuff especially on plastic - dissolves/melts it rapidly.
So there's your most likely answer - no instant explosion... just give it a few minutes!

[lamename]

You'd have a clean outlet.

[37ford4dr]

i worked in a lab once where low hanging gas fumes from some chemicals went boom because they floated over to the electrical outlets....it was so long ago i dont really remember the details but after that all chemicals were required to be stored and used in a "fume hood". i seem to recall it had something to do with the gas vapors acted as conductors but like i said it was so long ago i dont really remeber the details