Citation

Pathak TK, Sharma V, Jassal PS, Singh RP, Johar R. Fire Mater. 2022; 46(8): 1168-1179.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/fam.3060

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The traditional aerosol-forming composites are a mixture of potassium nitrate/chlorate and synthetic resins like phenol-formaldehyde, melamine-formaldehyde, polyurethane, and epoxy resin. Though these synthetic organic resins have excellent adhesion and mechanical properties, their high flammability and associated life-threatening occupational hazard have limited their application. Such compositions' combustion flame may reach up to 2100°C and cause secondary fire risk in an explosive atmosphere, especially ship engine rooms and oil-producing platforms. This study aimed to investigate the ability of natural flame-retardant tannic acid, which is a natural phenolic compound abundant in many plants, to reduce the exothermicity of potassium nitrate/chlorate-based pyrotechnic composite. In the present work, we newly developed a pyrotechnic composition that employed tannic acid as a reducer instead of synthetic resin. Its combustion behaviour, thermal properties, and fire extinguishing performance were comparatively evaluated against phenolic resin-based traditional pyrotechnic composition. Though both the new and traditional pyrotechnic composition has shown similar fire extinguishing efficacy, the newly developed composition showed 57% lower combustion flame temperature, faster burn rate, and lower calorific value than the traditional composition. The physical and chemical characteristics of the discharged aerosol were characterized by a series of techniques viz; high-resolution X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray analysis to understand the fire extinguishing mechanism.

Language: en

Keywords

aerosol-forming composite; firefighting; natural flame retardant; pyrotechnic materials; tannic acid