Fire-Extinguishing Dibromomethane Mixtures with Fluorinated Alkanes for Fire and Explosion Protection of Oil and Gas Industry Facilities

Abstract

The high fire hazard level is specific to the oil and gas industry due to the circulation of large volumes of flammable gases and liquids. To ensure fire protection at the oil and gas industry facilities, automated gaseous fire extinguishing is widely used. The main fire-extinguishing agents in automated gaseous fire-extinguishing systems are refrigerants HFC 23, 125, 227еа, FC 318c, and fluorinated ketone FK 5-1-12. Upon the adoption of the international agreements on combating global warming, most fluorinated gaseous fire-extinguishing agents currently used for fire extinguishing fell under restrictions. The article indicates the importance of refrigerants HFC 23, 125, 227еа, and FC 318c, whose production volume must be reduced by 85 % by 2036 to ensure the required level of fire and explosion protection of oil and gas industry facilities. A method to reduce the volumes of used fluorinated alkanes by producing highly efficient fire-extinguishing mixtures, one of the components of which is an agent of high global warming potential (GWP) and the other is a chemical compound with a short atmospheric lifetime, has been proposed. Dibromomethane, which fully meets the latest environmental requirements, is to be considered a short-lived component. Based on the well-known kinetic data, the rates of elementary chemical reactions generated in the flame of the methane-oxygen mixture when contacting with refrigerants HFC 23, 227еа, and dibromomethane, have been calculated and compared. The efficiency of using dibromomethane to increase the fire-extinguishing efficiency of refrigerants HFC 23 and 227еа has been substantiated. An experimental determination of the minimum fire-extinguishing efficiency of the generated mixed compositions is conducted to confirm the correctness of theoretical calculations. The obtained mixed gaseous fire-extinguishing agents enable the reduction of the volume of high global warming potential refrigerants by 1.5–2 times. It has been also demonstrated that the obtained mixed compositions have no toxic impact on a human.