Performance evaluation of water mist with bromofluoropropene in suppressing gasoline pool fires

Both clean fire suppressing agents, water mist and degradable bromofluoropropene have their limitation in application. Water mist is environment-friendly, but has difficulties in extinguishing small liquid fuel fires in compartments with good ventilation. Clean agent 2-bromo-3,3,3-trifluoropropene (BTP) is efficient in extinguishing liquid fuel fires, but generates toxic hydrogen fluoride. Combining water mist with BTP would overcome their respective drawbacks in fire suppression. Performance of a portable BTP-water mixture in suppressing gasoline pool fires evaluated by laboratory-scale experiments will be reported in this presentation. Results demonstrated that combining water mist with BTP would extinguish fires through physical and chemical mechanisms, taking the advantage of high efficiency and low concentration of acid gas. Furthermore, residue clean problems accompanying the conventional additives of metallic salts or surfactants to water mist would not be found. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.