PPH (potassium polyacrylate & hectorite) composite materials – A new fire accident emergency method for thermal protection of adjacent tanks

When a chemical tank fire happens in a storage area, it is very important to protect adjacent tanks so as to decrease fire accident losses. In this paper, a new thermal protection method was put forward based on a PPH (potassium polyacrylate & hectorite) thermal insulation composite material spraying on an adjacent tank under fire. Firstly, the PPH material was prepared successfully by a polymerization reaction of potassium acrylate, hectorite, NaHSO3 and (NH4)2S2O8. Secondly, thermal insulation performance of the PPH material was characterized by heat transfer process at high incident heat flux using cone calorimeter. The results show that thermal insulation performance of the PPH material is affected by a content change of (NH4)2S2O8, NaHSO3 and hectorite in formulations. The content of (NH4)2S2O8 0.14 wt%, NaHSO3 1.38 wt% and hectorite 1.4 wt% was an optimum formulation ratio to obtain best thermal insulation performance. Finally, possible thermal insulation mechanisms of the PPH material were presented using SEM, TG and TG-IR techniques. One of the thermal insulation mechanisms is the incident heat flux absorbed by water evaporation from the PPH material. Another is the thermal protection of the char formed from the PPH material at high incident thermal radiation, which can prevent heat and mass transfer. •A new potential fire accident emergency method for the thermal protection of the adjacent tanks was put forward.•The PPH materials were prepared successfully by polymerization reaction.•The thermal insulation performance of the PPH materials was characterized at high incident heat flux.•The possible thermal insulation mechanism of the PPH materials was presented.