A Single Step wrote:Worse case is probably 100 mL NPS spills out over the counter and floor if the extraction vessel breaks. Would that generate an explosive mixture in a small kitchen? I'm guessing not, but I don't know.
You can calculate this from the volume of the room concerned, and the molecular weight and the explosive limits of xylene. The worst case scenario would be spillage of your 100mL onto a surface hot enough to vaporize practically all of it. The smaller the kitchen, the more likely it is that a localized concentration of xylene will approach the lower explosive limit, which is the concentration of given substance in air that will ignite explosively. It should be fairly straightforward to extrapolate the localised expansion of the higher concentration vapor cloud in the vicinity of the spillage site in order to establish if and when a dangerous concentration of xylene will reach any given ignition source.
Xylene vapour is significantly denser than air so, especially after cooling (remembering the worst case scenario of a hot surface spillage), it will tend to accumulate at floor level if undisturbed.
The ambient temperature of the kitchen also needs to be taken into account. Compare this with the flash point of xylene. IIRC this is about 26°C so keeping the temperature of your kitchen below this not only makes working more comfortable

but also greatly reduces the fire hazard.
Voidmatrix wrote:I'm sure the SDS for naphtha has similar, if not the same, precautions.
Broadly, yes - although most naphtha used for extractions will have a lower flash point than xylene thus making it more easily flammable.
Always be fully mindful of the safety data of any material being used and take pains to become familiarised with what all of it means (but maybe not on an experiential level

)
βThere is a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce what modern scientists call 'a field of force'. The field acts on the observer and puts him in a privileged position vis-à-vis the universe. From this position he has access to the realities which are ordinarily hidden from us by time and space, matter and energy. This is what we call the Great Work."
β Jacques Bergier, quoting Fulcanelli