Ok serious answer here. It is most likely a CO2 extinguisher because those are high pressure cylinders. I don't think a dry chemical has enough pressure to take off much less fly like that. Also I don't see the mess a dry chemical extinguisher would make. He dropped it on the valve and it sheared off. I find this to be very plausible. YouTube is full of videos of this happening with welding cylinders. A CO2 extinguisher is essentially a small welding cylinder. It is lucky that no one was hurt.
Most Dry chems I deal with are 195 PSI, def not enough to rocket off like that, it would just start spraying everywhere. Definitely a small C02 that got its valve smashed open
Completely agree - the gas is also transparent, no powder is being expelled.
As a note, this appears to be in a non-Western country. This extinguisher likely wasn't Listed and not designed to Western standards and therefore was likely missing protective devices such as a restricting orifice which would prevent thrust from excessive flow like this. Could have possibly been overpressurized too, without a relief valve causing the catastrophic failure. The latter bit is just speculation from my side, being involved as an engineer in pressure safety/fire protection.
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u/DBDIY4U Mar 22 '25
Ok serious answer here. It is most likely a CO2 extinguisher because those are high pressure cylinders. I don't think a dry chemical has enough pressure to take off much less fly like that. Also I don't see the mess a dry chemical extinguisher would make. He dropped it on the valve and it sheared off. I find this to be very plausible. YouTube is full of videos of this happening with welding cylinders. A CO2 extinguisher is essentially a small welding cylinder. It is lucky that no one was hurt.