Haven been to a filling station where I do see the sign to always switch of phone and to stop making phone call, as it can lead to a spark which may cause explosion and loss of life. But what really baffled me is that I have seen a lot of fuel attendant receiving telephone call even while refueling and nothing really happen. There was also a time when I got a message from a friend that I should not pick any call near any gas device that it will cause an explosion. After getting confuse then I decided to make a little research then I decided to share.
I know you also want to find out if truly a cell phone can actually ignite a gas or fuel vapor, then seat comfortable as you read this article as everything that is not clear will be explained as much as possible.
There have been lot of report and video record that they saw a person pick up a call at a filling station and this cell phone lead to a spark which ignite a fuel vapor and lead to an explosion. According to research from scientist this is a false report and regarded as a rumor because a cellphone device cannot can't ignite a gas or a fuel vapor since it emit a very small energy less than (1W/cm2)citation .
The reason why cell phone and other electric device are not allowed is to prevent you from getting distracted since there is possibility of over fueling the car, that result in oil spillage which increase the risk of exposure to any flammable object.
Now the question you might want to ask is what then actually leads to explosion which are caught across camera tape, the unknown culprit which lead to this ignition of gas is static electricity. You might want to ask, what exactly is static electricity and how does this happen?
Static electricity occur as a result of imbalance between a negative and positive charge in an object. It has been recorded that mostly in an object that positive charge and negative charge are usually balanced which make such object to be neutralcitation .
In other to have a more understanding of what a static electricity charge is all about. It should be noted that all physical object there is a charge which can be a positive charge(proton), negative charge(electron) and neutral(neutron).
Now that that you know that all object are made up of charge, which can be negative, positive and neutral. And also you now know what static electric means then let go back to our scenario at the filling station. While filling a car at the filling station, there are lot of possibility of such individual going back into the car to pick up a wallet or get money from the drawer. In this process of getting the money such individual will like to seat on the chair, the contact made with your cloth while sitting down on the chair will create an electric chargecitation .
When such person while getting out of the car refuse to touch any metallic object, so as to release the static electric charge but go directly to touch the fuel pump/nozzle the force at which the charge will be released on the fuel pump/nozzle is capable of igniting the gasoline vapor or oil spilled there by leading to an explosion.
This static electric charge are not noticeable until they are above 2000 volts, this is why car manufacturer are now giving precautionary message to their customer not to get back to their car while refilling. As there are possibility of generating a static electric charge in the process of stepping on your car carpet or seating on your car seat.
As scientist have done a lot of test so as to ignite a gasoline vapor with an active cell phone but every of their research show that a cell phone cannot ignite or create a spark. Though there are instances where a faulty battery are can lead to a big explosion so also is a car faulty battery.
It is advisable to always touch any metallic object when getting out of a car so as to release any form of static electric charge as they are usually on the body surface. As some experts have found out that there have been up to 6000 volts generated by people that get out of their carcitation .
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