Using Positive Pressure and Plastic Drums to Transfer Ethanol at -50

[cyclopath]

@Ray

I think the poly drum would crack at those temps and thats a bigger problem with pressure behind it for sure.

Certainly a concern.

Once upon a time I claimed

@cyclopath

I’m playing with hdpe at -70 tomorrow.

Will try kicking bucket.

Then came back with

@cyclopath

yeah, I chickened out on taking my steelcaps to a 55gal HDPE drum with tincture at -50…(interwebs suggest I could have gotten away with that…)

I also wasn’t able to achieve -70C on my tincture that day…cheaped out on dryice.

given the null hypothesis that it would drop >$20k worth of cannabinoids on the floor, I decided to try something with less financial risk

I’ll get back with data when I have it.

No HARD data…

@cyclopath

tried tracking down info on how cold is too cold for HDPE.

so far all I’ve found is the glass transition temp for LDPE.
not sure that it translates well into real world performance, but it’s enough for me to get some samples and experiment. Certainly suggests that Polyethylene is my best bet.

http://www.appstate.edu/~clementsjs/polymerproperties/plastics_low_temp.pdf

Edit: although now I know I’m looking for the glass transition…

UHMW PE …becomes brittle at temperatures below −150 °C (−240 °F)

and

HDPE Properties:
Flexible, translucent/waxy, weatherproof, good low temperature toughness (to -60’C), easy to process by most methods, low cost, good chemical resistance

so perhaps kicking that bucket isn’t such a big deal after all

They work well at -50C, and don’t seem to embrittle there, but I never gathered solid data below that temp.