UV resistant air hose

[Hooked_on_HP]

There must be a big difference in pvc hose. Mine started out bright red and after a couple of months turned pinkand after a couple more turned white and got brittle. My hose reel is on my service truck and sits outside so it gets exposed to all the elements.
Bill

 

[wushaw]

That's what is happening to the hose right now, it's only two months old and cracks already.

 

[mikefromnh]

Don't know if they will hold up, but here is a good deal on polyurethane hoses. ($15)

Amazon.com: Hitachi 19412F 50 x 1/4-Inch Polyurethane Air Hose: Industrial & Scientific

If you buy two you get free shipping. And they even come with the couplers already attached.

Just got two myself, gonna try them out today.

 

[patrick_g]

I've noticed PVC hoses in different colors. What's the difference? Is one color more UV resistant that another?

The UV resistance is not detectable by the human eye as we can't see in the UV spectrum. UV "inhibitors" are added to the material to improve its UV resistance. Color as we perceive it has little or no relationship to UV penetration, reflection, etc.

Besides adding anti-UV additives the cross linking and polymerization of the plastic material can improve UV resistance making it less susceptible to the photochemical changes brought about by the highly energetic UV photons. When light hits a material, in some cases the energy of the incident photons raise electrons into higher orbits which translates in some cases into more energetic chemical (photo-chemical) reactions. UV photons are more energetic than visible light (e = hn, energy is equal to Plank's constant times nu, the frequency, which is inverse to the wavelength) What does that say? Shorter wavelength photons have more energy so they can elevate electrons to higher orbits and make the substance more chemically active and more likely to be damaged by chemical changes.

Pat