Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb Here. For the purposes of this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to work from the assumption that you don't
Speaker 1: want to cause an explosion or a fire at a
Speaker 1: gas station, sending the whole structure and all of its
Speaker 1: patrons up in a cloud of smoke, lottery tickets, and funyans. So,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to cause an explosion or start
Speaker 1: a fire at a gas station, should you keep your
Speaker 1: trusty cell phone holstered? Not particularly. Although some gas stations
Speaker 1: have posted warnings against cell phone use and urban legends
Speaker 1: recount fires started by cell phones at gas tanks, there
Speaker 1: has been no documented case of a cellphone starting a
Speaker 1: fire at a gas station. In fact, researchers such as
Speaker 1: the MythBusters have actively tried and failed to use cell
Speaker 1: phones to start gas pump fires. But what started the
Speaker 1: idea cellphones and gas pumps don't mix. One culprit could
Speaker 1: be the little shock of static electricity you get when
Speaker 1: you shuffle across the carpet and then touch something metallic
Speaker 1: or when you get out of your car. An electrical
Speaker 1: charge can build up in a material when it rubs
Speaker 1: against another material. While they both start with balanced amounts
Speaker 1: of negatively and positively charged electrons, one material can steal
Speaker 1: negatively charged electrons from the other. When those negatively charged
Speaker 1: electrons don't have anywhere to go, they can build up
Speaker 1: in that one material. That's called a static charge because
Speaker 1: while it will hold in place for a time in
Speaker 1: attempting to get back to its normal balance, the material
Speaker 1: will discharge those spare electrons at the first chance it gets.
Speaker 1: That is, as soon as it comes near a conducive
Speaker 1: material like metal, The electricity will arc from your fingertips
Speaker 1: to the metal, giving you a small shock. While cell
Speaker 1: phones have not been shown to ignite fires at gas stations,
Speaker 1: static electricity has. When you gas up your car, even
Speaker 1: if you don't spill a single drop gasoline, vapors still
Speaker 1: hang out around the pump nozzle, including when it's inserted
Speaker 1: in your gas tank. Those vapors can be ignited by
Speaker 1: static electricity. Once they're ignited, the fire travels wherever the
Speaker 1: gas is inside the pump, inside the car's fuel tank,
Speaker 1: and the next thing you know, there's a big boom
Speaker 1: and you have a lot of explaining to do to
Speaker 1: your insurance company, and you're not safe from static electricity
Speaker 1: just because most gas stations are short on shag carpets.
Speaker 1: If you start the fuel pump then get back into
Speaker 1: your car for some reason, and then get back out
Speaker 1: to return the nozzle to the pump, the motion of
Speaker 1: your clothes against each other and against the material of
Speaker 1: your car seat and interioror carpet might have charged you
Speaker 1: up enough to ignite those gasoline fumes. One study found
Speaker 1: charges of up to sixty volts on people who had
Speaker 1: gotten in and out of their cars while refueling. So
Speaker 1: even though your cell phone itself is not going to
Speaker 1: set off a fire at the gas station, you definitely
Speaker 1: should not go back into your car to retrieve it
Speaker 1: while you fill up. And it's probably in your best
Speaker 1: interests to pay attention to the gasoline instead of your
Speaker 1: phone while you're pumping. After all, any situation with moving
Speaker 1: vehicles and flowing combustion fuel deserves your full attention. Gas
Speaker 1: stations have lots of safety features, but it's always good
Speaker 1: to play at safe. Today's episode was written by Jamie
Speaker 1: Page Deaton and produced by Tyler clang Or. More on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other flowing topics. Visit how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I heart Radio.
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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.