Sapphire suppresses fire without water

Simplex Grinnell and Ansul, subsidiaries of Tyco Fire and Security, have addressed environmental concerns with Sapphire, a new chemical fire suppression system.

Unlike its predecessors – Halon and FM 200 – which also extinguish fires without the use of water, Sapphire does not have problems such as greenhouse gas emissions or ozone layer depletion.

“Halon was developed in the 1960s. It was great at putting out fires without water. It was very good for electrical rooms or any other applications where you couldn’t use water, but the problem that they found with Halon was that it depleted the ozone,” said Jason Prestien, service/sales representative for Simplex Grinnell’s Springfield branch office.

Halon production was halted in 1994. Then came FM 200, which Prestien said is a good chemical, but “It is a greenhouse gas, which leads to global warming.”

The Sapphire suppression system uses a new chemical compound, Novec 1230, created by 3M, and a storage and discharge system created by Ansul.

“The Novec 1230 is stored as a liquid and discharged as a gas,” Prestien said. Novec 1230 discharges in a matter of seconds, turning into gas as the fluid hits the nozzle.

Sapphire systems are custom designed for clients; the chemical is released in a manner similar to that of traditional fire-suppression sprinklers.

“The vapors wrap themselves around the chemical chain reaction of the fire and it will absorb the heat. That is what breaks down the fire. Typically, discharge happens at the (beginning) stage of the fire, where there is very little smoke. You have smoke detectors that will detect the smoke being created, and that is when the system discharges,” he added.

Novec 1230 contains fluorine – rather than chlorine and bromine – which has been shown to be benign to the ozone.

Novec 1230’s atmospheric lifetime is much shorter than its predecessors.

“There is a big difference in how this breaks down, because of how the fluorine breaks down. Novec 1230 stays in the atmosphere for five days,” Prestien said. “FM200 doesn’t break down for 33 years and Halon doesn’t break down for 65 years.”

Safe for technology

While it looks like water in its liquid state, Novec 1230 is not conductive and is not damaging when used to extinguish fires. In fact, electrical appliances can even be immersed in Novec 1230 with no repercussions.

“You can use it in computer rooms or where you have document storage, where you’ve got expensive archives like paintings – they use it in several art galleries on the East Coast. It can be used in emergency phone centers, air traffic control centers, (places) like MRI rooms, mobile MRI and CT scan centers, data vaults, banks, museums, cultural archives. The Navy is using it on some of their ships now,” Prestien said.

Prestien cited medical facilities in particular as potential customers for Sapphire, not only because it is safe for electronics, but also because it is safe for use in

occupied rooms.

“With Novec 1230 we use a concentration of 4.2 percent, but you could be in a room with up to a 10 percent concentration – although we never get to that – with no ill effects,” he said.

“With Halon we use a 5 percent concentration and you see adverse effects at 5 percent, so if someone was stuck in the room when it discharged they would get pretty sick. It can even be fatal,” he said. “FM200 is not as bad. The concentration is 7.5 percent to 8.7 percent and the adverse effect level is at 9 percent, which is a really small margin.”

Local tank refills

Eventually, Prestien said, clients will be able to have their Novec 1230 tanks refilled locally.

“With the others, if someone has an accidental discharge or if their tank leaks off over time, I have to send those tanks away. With Halon I have to send it to Ohio and FM 200 has to go to Wisconsin,” he said. That process can take weeks.

With Novec 1230, he said, local refills via a mobile filling station will keep the Sapphire system up and running with no downtime when critical assets are left unprotected.

But the mobile filling station isn’t yet an option, because the company needs to have more customers to make it economically feasible in this area.

“The mobile filling station costs around $12,000, but once we have a few more customers in the area we will be able to justify the cost,” said Prestien.

Damage prevention

Bob Sieckmann of Electronic Restorations Inc. said that in many cases, water damage from putting out fires can be reversed, and sometimes that’s a less expensive option.

But restoration isn’t always possible, he added.

“Some things we can’t restore, say if something has been sitting in what we call ‘black water’ – referring to sooty water from a fire or water that has been contaminated by sewage – if that water sits for a while then corrosion sets in,” he said.

And, Sieckmann added, anything – including the Sapphire system – that can help slow down or prevent corrosion is worthwhile.

“Once corrosion sets in, the device is a total loss. I’m not all that familiar with this particular chemical (Novec 1230), but if someone has a lot of money invested in a major computer room that houses servers, it’s definitely beneficial,” he said.

A foreseeable shift

While Halon and FM 200 are still widely used in the United States, Prestien foresees a shift in Sapphire’s favor.

“Halon 1301 had to be removed from Europe by December of 2003 and destroyed. The U.S. is still a little bit behind Europe in that you can still get Halon here (but) you just can’t put a new system in,” Prestien said. “FM 200 is the same way. In Europe it is banned, but in the U.S. it is not banned – in fact it is very widely used because Sapphire hasn’t caught on yet.”

Prestien said millions of gallons are being shipped monthly to Europe, because of its environmental properties.

“Eventually FM 200 will be gone the same way as Halon, but just when I don’t know. A lot of people are going to get to the point where they don’t want their name associated with Halon, and we see those people as good potential customers,” he said.