Coming Clean on Fire Suppression
a report by
John Allen
Europe, Middle East and Africa Marketing Director, Tyco Fire Suppression & Building Products
As anyone who watched the daily news last December knows, the most recent move in the quest to save the planet took place in Denmark. Although the climate change conference failed to achieve the high expectations many had for it, in the long term it may well have ‘clean agent’ implications for the fire-protection industry.
The UN Climate Change Conference was the 15th ‘Conference of the Parties’ of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the fifth ‘Meeting of the Parties’ of the Kyoto Protocol. The aim was to agree a framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012, and it followed the Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions scientific conference in March 2009.
Although this much-heralded event fell short of satisfying the ambitions of the environmentalists, inevitably it means that a new round of debate on clean-agent extinguishants and emissions concerns is sure to materialise. How did we get to where we are today: what is a clean agent and what does the future hold?
Until the end of the 1960s, carbon dioxide (CO2) was effectively the only available clean, dry, gaseous fire-extinguishing agent. Halon
gases became commercially available in the late 1960s and were soon
adopted as an alternative to CO2, particularly for the protection of business-critical assets in areas where people were likely to be
present. This is because CO2 is most certainly not suitable for total flooding applications in occupied rooms or enclosures, as its discharge in fire-extinguishing concentrations would be lethal to people in the room.
However, CO2 continues to be a popular, versatile and effective fire-suppression agent for the total flooding of unoccupied, enclosed,
special-hazard areas, such as power-generation equipment, spray booths and turbines. When discharged, it leaves nothing behind to damage sensitive equipment, and with no agent clean-up required, business-critical installations can be up and running again in the shortest possible time.
It remains popular because it can be compressed into a liquid state that, when maintained under pressure, requires a smaller storage footprint
than many other gaseous suppression agents. Additionally, as CO2 has so many other commercial uses, refills are readily available throughout the world. However, an essential consideration is to ensure that the flooded areas are adequately ventilated after discharge to prevent
the accidental exposure of personnel to dangerous levels of CO2 when investigating the cause of the discharge.
Despite the fact that, for the past 100 years, CO2 has probably safely extinguished more fires in unoccupied enclosures than any other gaseous suppressant, it does, mistakenly, come in for some bad press.
© TOUCH BRIEFINGS 2010
This is due largely to the connotation it has with the term ‘carbon
footprint’. However, the reality is that CO2 occurs naturally in the atmosphere, and the gas used as a fire-fighting suppressant is
extracted from a number of natural CO2-producing processes, then stored until required. Additionally, its use in fire protection is inconsequential compared with the emissions and environmental
damage caused by an uncontrolled fire, or the huge quantities of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere as a byproduct of many industrial processes and transportation.
Of the halons, Halon 1301 was by far the most popular as a gaseous fire- suppression agent and was widely accepted in its day as the industry standard, particularly for the total flooding protection of areas containing high-value electronic equipment. It was a first-class fire suppressant, but the same could not be said of its environmental credentials.
By the mid-1980s, scientific evidence showed that halogenated hydrocarbons had contributed to the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer. Halon 1301 had ozone-depletion and global-warming potential and an atmospheric lifetime that was wholly unacceptable to the concerned international community. Therefore, despite its undeniable effectiveness as a suppression agent, its demise came with the signing in 1987 of the Montreal Protocol (Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer). This generated a worldwide flurry of interest in developing alternative, sustainable, environmentally acceptable and long-term suppression agents. Some were more successful than others.
The Montreal Protocol was followed in 1997 by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which established the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, citing a number of gases.
One fire-fighting agent that became particularly popular following the Montreal Protocol was heptafluoropropane (HFC)-227ea, a halocarbon or HFC suppressant. However, the Kyoto Protocol specifically sought to cap the emissions of greenhouse gases from HFCs, among others, which almost inevitably has led to confusion and questions in terms of its viability. However, the position should represent a major step towards clarification if the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 – also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill – finally becomes law
John Allen is Europe, Middle East and Africa Marketing Director at Tyco Fire Suppression & Building Products. He is an engineer by training and joined Tyco in 2006, having worked at a senior marketing and general management level in a number of leading fire detection and alarm companies.
E:
jallen@tyco-bspd.com
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