Waterbrick for fuel?

[motolady]

Hey all,

I'm figuring out my water / fuel / food storage situation for a quickly upcoming 6 month road trip living out of my '98 Tacoma.

Has anyone used water brick for fuel storage? They're made out of the same thick high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic, and definitely a bit cheaper. I wonder if the big opening is the biggest issue for leakage. Anyway, please let me know if you've had any experiences!

 

[Takai13]

What about using a Rotopax?

 

[4xdog]

I wouldn't dream of storing fuel in a plastic container that wasn't made for that purpose. The typical polyethylene fuel container is fluorinated to give resistance to gasoline/diesel/etc. A water container doesn't have that chemical treatment and won't give long term results for fuel.

For non-fuel, the Water Brick looks OK -- likely not my cup of tea, but probably acceptable.

 

[rayra]

I'd like to read about the fluorination, Mandrake, if you can point me to any documentation of the process / vendor.

eta nevermind. Lots of material science papers, process was patented 48yrs ago, some specialty packaging for solvents and industrial chems, no references for simple crap like fuel jugs, that I can readily find. where's that link to my ridiculously overdone topic about HDPE2 containers, I had it around here somewhere...


To the OP, no on the Waterpak, don't contaminate it with gas, unless you indelibly mark it as such. Dye it red or something. cheap storage tote, boiling water, RIT dye pack. Will the waterpak so it will sink / be easier to submerge during the dyeing process.

I would suggest going to USplastics.com, there's a wide variety of HDPE2 containers that would serve your purpose. And depending on your intended mounting or packing setup, there's already a good variety of flat fuel tanks for boating and RV applications, which will give you 10-20gal of fuel capacity in a useful form. Heck they might even be fluorinated.

 

[4xdog]

There's a TON of literature on fluorination as a surface treatment to reduce permeability of polyethylene for use in gasoline tanks on motor vehicles. This is pretty old tech...

Here's an example.
http://www.barrierplastics.com/uploads/FLUORINATION_ARTICLE_09_23_09.pdf