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Propane freezes at 86 K; the lowest recorded temperature on Earth was 184 K. There are a variety of things that can go wrong at low temperatures, like what hap
by p1mrx 5y ago
Propane freezes at 86 K; the lowest recorded temperature on Earth was 184 K.
There are a variety of things that can go wrong at low temperatures, like what happened with natural gas in Texas, but the propane itself isn't going to freeze.
- Scoundreller 5y agoAs long as your tank is big enough, yes. The issue is propane is stored as a liquid, and when you draw it, it boils (and it must boil) but the evaporation makes the tank colder than ambient. Boiling point of propane is -42C. When it’s -30 and you’re drawing a lot of propane… yeah, your evaporation rate may suffer. Interestingly, a stiff wind is helpful here to warm the tank up to -30 (if it isn’t buried in wind-blocking and insulating snow…) Propane tank heaters are a thing for this reason. The issue in Texas was that you have regulators and pressure reducing valves, but going from high pressure to low pressure is cooling, leading to frozen valves/regulators because it wasn’t designed for liquid infiltration and the cold temps generated.