CURRENT STATUS AND DIRECTIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF AQUEOUS FIRE-EXTINGUISHING AGENTS

Abstract

One of the urgent problems in the field of fire extinguishing is the search and research of new and improvement of existing fire extinguishing agents, since the effectiveness of fighting fires largely depends on the quality of fire extinguishing substances and their application technologies. In order to design ways to find new and improve existing fire extinguishing agents, it is necessary to carry out a detailed analysis of modern achievements in the field of application of known fire extinguishing agents used to extinguish class B fires, to identify their advantages and disadvantages. In world practice, to prevent the occurrence of class B fires and to extinguish them, aerosol supply of aqueous fire-extinguishing agents (AFEA) to the flame is widely used. Therefore, the work focused on a comparative analysis of the fire-extinguishing efficiency of currently known AFEA, summarized the methods of preparing their aqueous solutions, and considered the relationship between
fire-extinguishing efficiency and concentration of AFEA. The analysis of the current state has shown that, for extinguishing class B fires and increasing the reliability of fire protection of various industrial facilities, aerosol supply of AFEAs based on various salts of s-metals and ammonium is traditionally used. The main component (the combustion inhibitor) in all these AFEAs are chlorides, carbonates, phosphates of alkaline and alkaline earth metals and ammonium, which are able to stop the burning process exclusively in the flame according to the mechanism of combustion inhibition that has not yet been clarified. In addition to traditional salts-inhibitors of combustion, salts of d-metals, which are able to inhibit the formation of active radicals directly in the flame, can show high fire-extinguishing efficiency. In this regard, concentrated aqueous solutions of inorganic salts of d-metals are very promising AFEAs that are worth developing.