Fire-Retardant Composite Foam with Antioxidant Addition for Prevention and Control of Coal Spontaneous

ABSTRACTGiven the shortcomings of existing fire-extinguishing materials, a new type of fire-retarding foam material with composite foaming agents and antioxidants as raw materials was developed. The formula of the composite foaming agent was determined by screening and compounding surfactants. Then, the inhibition characteristics of different antioxidants were tested using a cone calorimeter to determine the best antioxidant. Next, the inhibition characteristics and fire-extinguishing and cooling characteristics of fire-retarding foam were measured by a temperature programmed apparatus and a fire-extinguishing test bench. Results show that the prepared fire-retarding foam achieves the best performance when the mass ratio of the surfactants CAB-35 and MES is 2:3, the mass concentration is 0.4%, and the mass concentration of the tea polyphenols is 1%. In the aspect of low-temperature inhibition, the cross-point temperature of the fire-retarding foam increases from 119.4°C of raw coal to 142.7°C, which is 15.4°C and 6.5°C higher than that of ordinary foam and MgCl2 solution, respectively. At 180°C, the CO concentration is only 1613 ppm, which is about 67.3% of that of raw coal, 78.3% of that of coal treated with ordinary foam, and 85.8% of that of coal treated with MgCl2 solution. The fire-extinguishing times of common foam, MgCl2 solution, and fire-retarding foam are 1780 s, 1350 s, and 820 s, respectively, indicating that fire-retarding foam has the highest fire-extinguishing efficiency.KEYWORDS: Coal spontaneous combustionfire-retarding foamcomposite foaming agentantioxidantinhibition performance Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 51874008 and 51504009).