r/ChemicalEngineering • u/ChemicalMurdoc Cell Manufacturing/10yrs • Apr 30 '25

Design Propane tanks don't require secondary containment. Right?

I'm having an argument at work that propane nor refrigerant tanks secondary containment. I don't believe they require it, as that's how I've always seen them built and I can rationalize why. But I can't seem to find anything to support that.

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u/strugglin_man May 01 '25

For it to rain propane the temp would have to be LT -42C. Where TF were you, Siberia in January?

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u/uniballing May 01 '25

Not necessarily. Most of it vaporizes even at -10F, but a lot stays liquid long enough until enough heat can reach it to boil it. You can actually fill a bucket with propane if you’re okay with a lot of it boiling off. Look into how they did pooling fire experiments: they literally filled a “pool” with liquid propane at atmospheric pressure and lit it on fire

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u/strugglin_man May 01 '25

For it to rain propane it would have to condense.

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u/uniballing May 01 '25

Not necessarily. It just had to never be vaporized in the first place