My wife and I are both smokers. I use a Zippo; she uses Bic disposables. Some time ago I began scavenging the remaining flint from her empty Bics before she threw them out. I stash them in a little glass vial with a screw top in a drawer; it doesn’t bounce around or get jostled or anything, but every time I go to get one out of the vial there is a quantity of powdered flint at the bottom. I assume these are made from compressed powder in a sort of pill-press machine. Does anyone know of a way to store them to keep them from disintegrating? It’s not really an issue, as they are free and I have an almost constant supply, but I’m curious. Is it my storage method, or is it just the low quality of the flints?
wrap in a small bit of paper and wrap adhesive tape around that.
they are made to disintegrate readily. it’s what they do.
The flint in your wife’s Bics is likely ferrocerium firesteel. With 20% iron in the alloy, apparently the stuff rusts, especially in the presence of moisture and salts. A little bag of silica dessicant may be all you need in your stash vial to prevent powdering.
There is a felt pad at the bottom of the Zippo’s inside case. Lift up the pad and place your spare flints between the felt pad and the Rayon balls that store the lighter fluid. No bouncing, jostling, chipping, or flaking.
Is that what it’s for? I’d wondered.
Mrs. L.A. was having difficulty lighting the fire with a disposable lighter, and she doesn’t like the long firestarter lighter. She asked if I had a Zippo. So I dug out my zip-top bag of lighters. I can’t remember when I’d last used any of them. There was a ‘new’ (I used it back in the '80s/'90s) matte-black Zippo in there that I’d put back into its clamshell case. It wouldn’t light. I couldn’t even spin the wheel. I opened it up and tapped out the flint, replaced the flint with a new one that was in the baggie, and… I couldn’t spin the wheel. I backed off the thumb screw to the point where the lid couldn’t be closed, and I could just barely spin the wheel. There was another Zippo in the baggie, one with a ship engraving that my dad got when he was in the Navy in the '50s or '60s, and it behaved the same as the other one. I have polished silver and brushed silver Zippos around here somewhere, but I couldn’t try them because I have no idea where they are. I gave up and left the lighters for another day. Mrs. L.A. dug out a large disposable lighter that had been sitting in a box for a decade and managed to start the fire with that.
A day or two later, I had to make those Zippos work. After tapping out the flints, I stuck a toothpick up the flint tubes. It didn’t come out the top, below the wheel. I found a drill bit and stuck it up the tubes and turned it with my fingers. With a little more tapping, I dislodged tiny bits of flint. The toothpick came through the top. These bits should have worked; that is, they should not have prevented the wheel from turning. They were big enough that a new flint would make it difficult to screw the spring in.
They had deteriorated over the years – though the new Ronson flints in their plastic bendy pack and the new Zippo flints in their wheel-top container had not deteriorated. I’m guessing that the lighter fluid did the damage before it evaporated.
In any case, cleaning out the flint residue so that a new flint could be inserted, and topping the lighters off with fluid, did the trick. They work like new.
Here’s a tip (from a reformed smoker who still loves his Zippos):
Use Ronson lighter fluid. Zippo fluid smells bad.
I’m pretty sure at some point I’ve used Coleman fuel in one or both of the ones I couldn’t find. 
I think they’re all naptha (Ronson fluid, Zippo fluid, Coleman fuel), but it seems like Zippo adds something to theirs that smells bad. Or maybe they leave something out. I don’t know.
They use larger molecules, such as in kerosene and diesel , used to make a flame it is called “naptha”.
Other brands use smaller molecules, such as white spirits, octane … used to make a flame its called parrafin.
Well anyway… do not use anything which is not sold as lighter fluid…
And obviously gases like butane won’t work in them either, even though they are sold as liquid (compressed inside can… )
But you can use other brands of lighter fluid in any lighter that uses lighter fluid.