Methanol Fuel Cells on Airplanes
Methanol fuel cells are now allowed on airplanes. This paragraph sums up the inconsistency nicely:
In some sense, though, that’s missing the point. Read the last restriction again. So now, innocuous gels/liquids/shampoos are deemed too hazardous to bring inside the airplane cabin, but a known volatile liquid (however safe it may be) is required to be stored inside your carryon baggage? I’m not criticizing the technology here, but I have a feeling that that this DOT logic is going to be questioned repeatedly by frazzled flyers.
Clive Robinson • October 9, 2007 7:19 AM
Methonal is available in quite a few liquids and containers you will find on aircraft any way.
Although flamable it is generaly not that much of a risk compared to many other hydrocarbons commonly found (for instance butane in lighters and cans of hairspray / shaving foam / deodarant etc, also aftershave etc).
It depends on the quantitiy and at what temprature it is at and also the Lower and Upper Explosive limits at the cabin preasure and oxygen level (Quite low on some flights acording to various pilots associations).
As for medical side effects it has been found recently that the air intake systems on some aircraft are very unfortunatly co-located with the engines. This design flaw alows the air to be very easily contaminated with a whole range of quite nasty chemicals used in fuels and lubricants (again pilots and aircrew associations have complained about this).
As for the terorist threat, not very great it is an accelerant but not particularly a good one, and there is more than enough alchol etc on a comercial plane already if you wanted to go down that route.
The simple fact is that nobody in the public domain has so far come up with a collection of liqud chemicals that would be effective enough to be used in a way to endanger the aircraft.