Talk:Propane

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Archive 1

Crystal structure
I don't know if the crystal structure of propane is important enough to be included in this article. Maybe it would be better placed at Alkane as an example of the crystal structure of an odd-numbered n-alkane (these have lower melting points due to poorer packing than even-numbered n-alkanes). Any views, anyone?

Ben (talk) 20:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Do propane canisters actually explode when you shoot them? Or are they designed specifically to prevent that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.126.117 (talk) 11:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC)


 * It is very difficult for this to occur, and tv/video games usually greatly exaggerate the extent to which this can happen. Most pistols would not actually rupture the tank. It would require a tremendous blow from something far more destructive and unfortunately there isn't a great "reference" to cite here. It would likely require incendiary ammo or tracers of some sort to cause an explosion via projectile/gunfire with an ignition factor. propaneprices (talk) 18:44, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Merge proposal
There is substantial overlap between the content of Liquefied petroleum gas and that of Propane. In general, Propane is of higher quality. I suggest we extract the useful and well-referenced content from LPG, add it to Propane, and make a redirect. —Scheinwerfermann T&middot;C 07:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

ALTERNATE PROPOSAL

LPG is a generic term for mixtures of hydrocarbon compounds ranging from C2 to C7, whereas Propane is a specific chemical compound with definitive properties.

There is commercial use of various marketing terms for LPG compounds; one of these is "Propane" which is usually a mixture of chemical compounds propane (C3H8), propylene (C3H6), and an odourant.

I propose that the separate entry for Propane MUST be retained, and rather that the above 2 sentences be appended to the entry for LPG to explain the conflict in terms. -- -- 01:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)Foster00 (talk)


 * Oppose merge, per Foster00. Merging LPG and propane would imply that butane, etc should also be merged in. --Athol Mullen (talk) 09:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Trioculite (talk) 23:56, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree with Foster and Mullen. Keeping these entries separate will disambiguate LPG.  The light hydrocarbons and their alcohols are being touted as "latest breakthrough" in large-scale energy systems.  Economic and politic issues aside, better to have drill-down in Wiki to allow individuals to investigate chemical and technological components in-depth.


 * Oppose merge. It seems that someone incorrectly thought that propane and LPG were one in the same. The fact that they are NOT THE SAME has been cleared up.--Bodybagger (talk) 02:55, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose merge, per Foster00. Propane gas purchased commercially for heating or backyard grilling is commonly referred to as LPG. This causes confusion in the general community; a few lines should disambiguate LPG from propane.  This article should be retained and discuss Propane as an unique chemical species. BeastRHIT (talk) 06:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Propane pipes
What about underground propane delivery to houses and business, in lieu of natural gas? All I know of this is what a documentary on the Humberto Vidal Explosion said, so I can't really add anything here, but the article should say something.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

MJ/kg
This expression should has the equivalent value in BTU,maybe in .BrianAlex (talk) 01:52, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see convert. Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Heating value is currently in MJ/kg should be represented in BTU/lb for English units. BTU/gal is not a good conversion because a sample volume of gas varies with respect to temperature and pressure. No reference state (temp. and pressure) is listed with the figure.  Mass is constant. BeastRHIT (talk) 06:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Dead Links
22 is a dead link —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.70.80.179 (talk) 20:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

"The gross heat of combustion of one normal cubic meter of propane is around 91 megajoules"

This afirmation is not correct.There are no such info in the doc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.115.215.251 (talk) 18:51, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The source gives ~46 MJ/kg, which is consistent with 91 MJ/m3, given the density of about 2 kg/m3 (temperature dependent). Materialscientist (talk) 06:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Boiling Point Range
The value of 231.11 K comes from Yaws, Carl L., Chemical Properties Handbook, 1999, McGraw-Hill(New York) isbn= 0-07-073401-1, page 9JSR (talk) 13:08, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 22 September 2013
The explanation of the flame temperature seems to be off, blame flame should be hotter than red flame. Please double check..

24.130.150.22 (talk) 07:00, 22 September 2013 (UTC)


 * The colors do not represent the appearance of the flame. Please review the source paper. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:14, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Energy Content
Hello, I found your note and wish to respond. The article on propane under the energy content section contained an error, a statement similar to 40.2 kJ/g ... 50 MJ/kg which contradicted itself. As this did not answer the question and contained conflicting information, I went on a search taking much time and aggravation to find the correct answer to my question of how much energy is released by the combustion of propane. I found the information which I considered to be reliable at the NIST, and so, having found my answer I thought to share it with Wikipedia. I do not appreciate your removing the efforts of my work. As it is from the NIST I doubt you can find it inaccurate, so I am left wondering why you so deliberately chose to re-edit the section.

Per the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the heat of combustion of propane is -2219.2 kJ/mol ± 0.46 kJ/mol. The molecular weight of propane is 44.09562 g/mol, and this comes out to be 50.327 MJ/kg ± 0.0104 MJ/kg.

http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?Name=propane&Units=SI&cTG=on&cTC=on&cTR=on 70.210.11.234 (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2014 (UTC)Craig

Restored significant digits and updated reference link. Yes, it is enthalpy; I chose to write simply. And you are correct, it is not per the NIST, rather per the NIST website, but one supposes the NIST in placing it on their website considers it accurate. I wonder why you didn't correct the original Wikipedia energy content error and now try to use my research with your edit?70.210.11.234 (talk) 03:02, 23 January 2014 (UTC)Craig
 * Please don't correct -2219.2 ± 0.5 to -2219.2 ± 0.46, which is not a scientific presentation of accuracy. (The accuracy of 0.46 is "too accurate" and should be rounded to 0.5, except for some special cases, which this one is not). Further, even the NIST link gives a spread between different datasets. Your IP is floating and I can't reach you on your talk page, thus posting here. Materialscientist (talk) 03:47, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Propane Risks and Alternate Fuels
This section does not have any value and little or no references. I almost deleted it, but I opted to put this section here to give a bit of discussion first. CNG evaporates??

I vote to remove the section.

I vote not to remove this section. My brother actually died from inhaling propane. I will get sources for the information I provided. Just give me some time as I am short of time. For anyone who wants to do their own research there is a plethora of information (studies, statistics,.gov websites available about sudden death from inhalants--78.17.56.77 (talk) 13:06, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

As I'm not an experienced editor I unfortunately am not able to add information about the dangers of propane. There definitely should be a section of the article on solvent abuse. Propane is abused as a solvent and has extensive risks associated with it (as all solvents do). Deaths have and do occur. This is worth a mention in the article.

Information available here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intoxicative_inhalant

--78.17.56.77 (talk) 13:11, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

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Section apparently copied directly from the State of California warning
Someone keeps adding back what appears to be the California Prop 65 warning for propane under the Hazards section. It is not really worth putting it into there without some level of explanation. To avoid an edit war, I am discussing it here. JSR (talk) 21:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Would anyone care to explain this?
According to the history section on this page, propane was first identified in 1910. However, I've found a reference dating from 1873 that mentions propane, with the correct formula and all! What exactly is the meaning of this?

Here's the reference: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=J744AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA261&dq=Propane+Chojnacki+Rilliet&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiw__bj3KfTAhUCUBQKHa55A8AQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=Propane&f=falseSQMeaner (talk) 00:38, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * "First identified as a volatile component of gasoline...".JSR (talk) 03:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem is that that probably isn't true, and even if that wasn't the case the discovery of propane itself most definitely should be included in a history section on it.SQMeaner (talk) 05:52, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You are missing something. It has been known for a long time, no real discovery involved.  Finding it in gasoline made it an industry.  Union Carbide, Phillips Petroleum and others began selling it as it was available to them.  The removal from gasoline made gasoline a bit more stable and easier to deal with.JSR (talk) 11:54, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Surely somebody was the first to give it a name or document its formula? Anyway, I am inclined to agree that, without any further info, the phrase "Propane was first identified as a volatile component in gasoline..." is prone to being misinterpreted by readers without background knowledge as referring its initial discovery. It is the very first sentence of the History section so they might well think that is the very start of its history. Adding a sentence or two before it to explain the initial discovery and its naming would do no harm. That said, the same is true for many articles like this. Neither Butane nor Pentane mentions who discovered/named/classified them, or when, while Ethane does, what I consider to be, a much better job. --DanielRigal (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

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Improvements of "Uses" section
I noticed that the Uses section of the article has a good amount of relevant content. But especially in its first section, a lot of the claims are not backed with a citation or written in encyclopedic style, which is why the cleanup tags were added. The section generally needs some work on adding sources and style of writing. —TheAnonymousNerd(talk • contribs) 23:45, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the style and tone are OK now, so I'm being bold. TotallyNotSarcasm [lɪi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈d͡ʒ] [kɔnt͡ʂɻɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 07:04, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Refilling Stations for LP Gas
In the USA, there are many places you may go to exchange or refill LP gas canisters. Maybe expand that and cite regulations requirements to become authorized to conduct commerce as a refilling station? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.205.36.19 (talk) 11:10, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Use as a compressed gas/aerosol propellant
This article has no mention of the use of propane as a compressed gas for applications which previously used CFCs, such as aerosol propellants and canned air. In Germany at least, aerosol deodorants, canned air, etc. are typically labeled as using propane as the propellant, whereas Aerosol_spray says "The most common replacements of CFCs are mixtures of volatile hydrocarbons, typically propane, n-butane and isobutane." I don't know whether actual consumer applications in 2021 tend to use propane or a mixture, or if this varies by country or application.

Now, I see that Airsoft lists the compressed gases commonly used in the sport as "e.g. propane ("green gas"), 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane or CO2". How green is propane? Methane is, famously, a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2; is unburnt propane a greenhouse gas? What is its environmental fate - does it degrade without producing methane as an intermediate product?

This article should therefore have a section on the use of propane as a compressed gas, either alone or in a mixture. 1) What are the relevant properties of propane, e.g. vapor pressure? 2) What are its pros and cons compared to alternatives? (Nontoxic, but flammable, etc.) 3) What is the environmental effect of unburnt propane? 4) What is the scope of use of propane? (E.g. consumer applications or also industrial? Germany or Europe or worldwide? If there are regional differences, is this due to legislation or availability or...?) SSSheridan (talk) 09:15, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

The density is wrong
d=0.493 g/cm3 at 25C density of 2 would be greater than water, which does not happen (mostly) for hydrocarbons

Density of butane also wrong.

These should be corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.160.209 (talk) 23:05, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

The density is wrong
Never mind. Density was for the gas - rather than the liquid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.100.160.209 (talk) 23:06, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Shipping fuel
The complete paragraph makes little sense to me, and does not mention any reference. It should be re-considered or perhaps even removed. Jan olieslagers (talk) 08:05, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * "International ships can reuse propane from ocean-going ships that transport LPG" - what is an International ship and what makes it technically different from a non-international ship?
 * "high-octane propane vaporizes before the heavier, low-octane propane" How can there be variants of propane with different octane grading?
 * The entire shipping fuel section makes little sense to me as well. Maybe the author meant LPG instead of propane. Even if it can be referenced and clarified, this info would belong elsewhere such as in the articles on LPG, bunker fuel and Maritime transport. I suggest removing the entire section, after pausing to see if anyone wants to salvage any of it. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * As no one has refuted this suggestion of removal in over a year, I took it on myself to do so. Robbak (talk) 12:38, 17 January 2024 (UTC)