AEROFOT Technology
Excellence in condensed aerosol fire extinguishing system.
Aerosol Fire Extinguishers
Traditionally, there were three elements assumed as necessary for combustion: heat, fuel, and oxygen, These form the “fire triangle”.
Typical fire extinguisher involves removing the fuel from the fire, limiting oxygen to the fire
(smothering), or removing the heat (quenching).
This physical process had to be modified as halons became more widely used and better understood.
The halons, as well as other agents like the AeroFOT condensed aerosol, do not extinguish fire in any of these ways, but instead break up the uninhibited chain reaction of the combustion process. There is definitely a chemical reaction that interferes with the combustion process by removing the active chemical species involved in the flame chain reaction.
Transformation Process
Upon activation, the AeroFOT condensed aerosol generators immediately starts a chemical reaction that in few seconds produces condensed dry aerosol in the discharge density defined by the system designer (i.e. potassium compounds, K2 CO3 , H2 O, N2 , CO2 , and other gas particles in small quantities). The condensed aerosol thus generated consists of micro-sized particles of potassium compounds suspended in inert gases in an extremely high ratio between the exposed surface and their reaction mass.
The AeroFOT condensed aerosol then remains in suspension for a relatively long time into the protected volume, allowing its active inhibitor to flow into the combustion core transported by its own natural convection currents and breaking the chain reaction upon flame contact with extremely high efficiency.
Alkaline metal requires the least amount of energy for ionization because of its very low ionization potential. Therefore a certain amount of energy is removed from the combustion itself to eliminate the atom’s electrons during this ionization process. This is the physical action of the extinguishing process of AeroFOT condensed aerosol.
The chemical process of the condensed aerosol fire extinguishment is characterized by certain reactions in rapid sequence taking place between atoms and fragments of unstable molecules, which is called “chain reactions of radicals”.
Since the radicals are unstable, they tend to reach a final stable condition. The stable final products, among others, are carbon dioxide (CO2 ) and water (H 2 O).
The potassium atoms derived by the disassociation of the potassium compounds contained in the AeroFOT condensed aerosol, react during combustion with the free radicals of unstable hydroxides forming potassium hydroxide (KOH), which is a very stable compound.
At this stage the chain reaction of the free radicals is halted and the flame is extinguished.
