THE ABSOLUTE BEST IN FIRE PROTECTION TECHNOLOGY ^™

 The following is a general overview of  Fabric Seal™ Fire Retardant characteristics, application mechanisms, and some potentially useful tips, tricks, and precautions in dealing with  Fabric Seal™ Retardant.

Fabric Seal™ Retardant  is a line of aqueous fire retardant penetrants, varying in concentration and usage.  Treatment involves a thorough wetting of the substrate by the fire retardant solution, followed by removal of the excess solution.  Generally, this excess is removed by mechanical means and then the water is removed through evaporative drying - enhanced, or not.

Wetting may be performed using standard wetting procedures and equipment – dipping, spraying, vacuum loading, etc.…  The equipment needs to be plastic, stainless steel, or other non-corrosive material as the liquid forms of Fabric Seal™ are electrolytically corrosive.  Excess liquid should be removed by pinch rollers, spinning, forced air, vacuum, wringing etc… before final drying.  The excess may be recycled. Final drying may be achieved by any reasonable method that the treated material will handle – heat, forced air, etc…

The idea is to allow a sufficient amount of liquid to evaporate in place, so that an adequate amount of the fire retardant chemicals is left behind.   I.e. the physical removal of too much liquid by other than evaporative mechanisms can reduce the effectiveness of the treatment.  Put plainly, the material needs to be dried from a well-saturated state.  The flip side of this argument is that treatment often causes some stiffening of the substrate – the heavier the treatment, the greater the stiffening effect.  Therefore, real world applications are a balancing act of degree of fire retardance vs. tolerable degree of stiffness.  Our guidelines take this into consideration.

Several methods may be used to enhance the penetration/performance of the solutions and reduce the stiffening effects.  The better the penetration of the Fabric Seal™ into the substrate, the better the fire retardance.   This may, in turn, allow the use of a less concentrated product to achieve the desired results.

Surfactants may greatly improve the penetration of the solutions into some materials, by reducing the surface tension of the water molecules and allowing better ‘wetting’ of the substrate.  While we have found many surfactants to be compatible with the Fabric Seals™, Ivory Liquid™ is still the most benign, yet beneficial, surfactant we have found.  We would greatly appreciate any input on this subject.  Levels of  ½  to 1% solution weight are suggested.  Caution : Elevated surfactant levels tend to increase smoke generation during burning.

 Heating the solutions may also have a pronounced effect.  An increase in fiber penetration, performance, and suppleness, may all be seen, especially with synthetics.   A temperature around 130º F has proved to be effective in our experiments.  Taking the temperature much beyond 130º F does not seem to show significant improvements in performance.  Of course, heating and surfactants may be used together – providing the surfactant is safe to heat.

Multi-layered materials, twisted materials (ropes and even some yarns), or any end products where the inner area of the product is effectively sealed off from penetration by the outer layers, present special problems – especially with synthetics.  Don’t be fooled by the apparent flame retardancy seen on a low flame (cigarette lighter, etc…) if you have to pass a larger scale test.  When a larger flame melts through the outer layers and reaches the unprotected material beneath – it will likely flame.  If the inner layers are not reachable by heating and/or surfactants – the individual layers/strands may have to be treated separately to obtain sufficient fire retardancy.  Another ‘fooler’ is incomplete drying.  Be sure that the fabric you are test burning is completely dried.  You may have an apparently successful test one day, only to find out several days later that you now fail.  Finally, a somewhat strange phenomenon may be encountered in blended weaves.  The fabric may burn more readily in one direction than the other, or one fabric may selectively burn away, leaving the other behind.  Be sure and test in all directions.  Of course, you will have to treat the whole fabric as the most flammable entity – (don’t forget to try heating in these cases.)

 Spraying must be done in a smooth and uniform fashion. Incorporating a lot of air into the solutions when spraying, such as rigorous pumping of a hand sprayer, can cause ‘spotting ‘ due to beading of the solution and a reduction in protection – particularly in the more concentrated solutions.  Also the more complete the coverage, the better the fire retardance – treatment of both front and back surfaces is preferred where applicable.

The bottom line is that there are vast numbers of fabric variations and treatment requirements.  The Fabric Seal™ products are uniquely versatile products designed to solve a variety of flame retardant requirements across a broad array of materials.  In our experience, Fabric Seal™ can effectively treat just about any material with even moderately penetrable fibers.  Our recommended treatments (included in this package) are merely a broad guideline intended to give you a place to start for determining your individual needs.  Our website (www.flameseal.com) contains a wealth of information, including testing information.  Our technical department is always available by phone, or email, to help with individual problems but, once again, final application methods and treatment levels will have to be determined by the end user.

Philip Miller
rdqc@flameseal.com
713-668-4291