Paraphernalia - balloon permeation?

[antigenesis]

Hey everybody. SWIM has a cross country (Greyhound) bus ride coming up and a friend had a great idea of tying some NOS balloons to his carry on baggage, maybe with 'Happy Birthday' or some such written on them . While I have no doubt that he wouldn't be badgered by any personnel about the balloons, I was curious how long one of them could hang around before it started to deflate or started to lose concentration. Have any SWIMers had any experiences with filled balloons hanging around, maybe for about a week or so?

Can't wait to hear,
Peace,
Anti

[geezaman]

SWIM finds after 12 hours even balloons intended for helium are only half as inflated as they were after filling, SWIM suggests foil type balloons may stay inflated longer.

Unfortunatly SWIM found out the first part by inflating ten for himself to enjoyjust before going to sleep, but only got through 3 and then passed out, on awakening the remaining balloons ranged from large orange to grapefruit size, SWIM was quite unhappy at this fact.
peace
geezaman

[antigenesis]

Ah ok, thanks ya very much geezaman, thats good to know.

[fnord]

i hear the mylar ones work alot better for longer term storage,i have not seen this statement backed up,but grandma was hanging out with a nitrous vender at a local pot fest when someone asked how much for the balloons in bulk because they wanted to bring some home after the weekend was over,the guy was told that regular balloons wont hold it very long and that only the mylar(shiny foil ones) will hold it for longer periods.no length of time was stated.

[Pondlife]

N2O is quite a large molecule - far larger than helium, and larger than both nitrogen and oxygen (the main constituents of air), so I would expect the diffusion rate of N2O to be lower than air and much lower than helium, all other things being equal.

Helium quality latex balloons will also be better than regular quality. There is also a liquid called "Hi-Float" which can be used to further reduce the rate of gas diffusion.

As others have already mentioned, mylar film balloons are probably much better all than latex, and have the added advantage that they are tougher and thus less likely to burst.

[geezaman]

^^ Although the mylar ones may be tougher "so less likely to burst" they have a more determined set size, where as the capasity of normal rubber or latex balloons changes as they stretch , the mylar ones do not.

SWIm recently used some helium latex type balloons and found that even they showed noticable deflation after about 3 hours