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What other gases can be used as suppressant of the explosion in a confined space?
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Fun Police  
#1 Posted : 04 April 2011 20:49:52(UTC)
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Fun Police
Apart from carbon dioxide and chlorobromomethane do you of another suitable gas that can be used as an inert gas suitable as a explosion suppressant in a confined space?
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paul mc  
#2 Posted : 04 April 2011 21:22:35(UTC)
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paul mc
thats an extremely open question
relevant to what situation and what is it suppressing as differing chemical have differing L.E.L`s and U.E.L`s
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teh_boy  
#3 Posted : 05 April 2011 08:20:41(UTC)
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teh_boy
Any of the Nobel gases?
Nitrogen?


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firesafety101  
#4 Posted : 05 April 2011 10:03:41(UTC)
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firesafety101
Have you thought of water mist? Not a gas but very effective as it reduces the oxygen content.
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Ken Slack  
#5 Posted : 05 April 2011 10:20:34(UTC)
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Ken Slack
Argon, Halon??
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saifakbar  
#6 Posted : 05 April 2011 11:14:00(UTC)
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saifakbar
why another gas?
why not purging with water or stem? may be helpful to remove hazard form confined space.should be quantify through RA.

Regard

Saif
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colinreeves  
#7 Posted : 05 April 2011 13:46:21(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
colinreeves
In shipping the methods have been:

Steam (in the days when most ships were steam propelled)
CO2 - still current, but takes up a lot of storage space
Halons - I think fully phased out now, if not, soon will be
Hi-ex foam - current
water mist - current
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Mick Noonan  
#8 Posted : 05 April 2011 14:01:04(UTC)
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Mick Noonan
Calvin, what is an explosion suppressant and how does it work!?! I'm intrigued. If you use it on confined space then surely you are introducing a new problem due to there being no oxygen in there for people to work? Is it that it's heavier than air and will sit there preventing oxygen from becoming part of an explosion?

I do know of specialised chemicals (FM200 etc) that are used in electrical rooms to "absorb" energy in the event of fire.

more detail please.
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SteveL  
#9 Posted : 05 April 2011 16:45:15(UTC)
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SteveL
Calvin

Why would you want to use something that has such a low PPM usage and a R59 phrase

This product has been banned by the NFPA since 1969, I know UK is behind USA but even so.
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Salvar  
#10 Posted : 05 April 2011 21:50:09(UTC)
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Salvar
Greetings, Calvin.

I agree with what's been said so far about haloalkanes.

By explosion suppressant, I guess you are talking about talking about preventing a runaway reaction. In which case, keeping the concentrations above or below the flammable limits is the way to do it (preferably below for obvious reasons!). You could also think about refrigeration to reduce the evaporation rate and therefore the concentration in the space above (I'm assuming) the liquid. Another way might be to have a travelling top to reduce volume of the space above the surface.

In addition to the gases mentioned, if purity of the protected substance is not an issue, diesel exhaust can be a cheap, albeit dirty, inerting gas.
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