Nassau, Bahamas Years-long Landfill Fire Extinguished with FireIce
Lithium Battery Fire Suppression for the FAA
With the exponential increase in the use of lithium-ion batteries in mass systems, central recharging stations and on military and commercial aircraft, comes the need to protect these applications from the potential catastrophic event of a lithium battery fire. These systems will degrade as the batteries go through more and more charging cycles, just as a cellphone holds less and less charge over time. Eventually an increasing number of batteries will fail and fires will be more prevalent.
The current FAA protocol for extinguishing lithium-ion batteries in runaway, is to fully submerge the battery in water and let it sit for the duration of the flight. This FAA protocol is effective, but not the safest way to extinguish these types of fires, and furthermore, prevent these lithium-ion battery fires from occurring in the first place.
GelTech Solutions and the Fire Risk Alliance began testing the use of FireIce® ST to extinguish lithium-ion batteries in runaway versus complete submersion in water, and the use of a halon extinguisher, found on all airlines. The test results weighed heavily in FireIce® ST’s favor. FireIce® ST was not only able to extinguish a lithium-ion battery in runaway, but also prevented re-ignition, a feat no other competitor could achieve.
After four years of research and development, working with multiple lithium battery manufacturers, and companies designing and building units for mass transportation, charging and storage of lithium-ion batteries, GelTech Solutions carefully created and refined a highly effective lithium-ion battery containment system, capable of extinguishing battery fires the moment they began.
The FireIce® Lithium Battery Active Suppression Kit is simple and affordable, and has been designed to address the ever prevalent need of safe and efficient lithium-ion battery fire suppression and prevention, by providing a flexible modular system that can be tailored to most any installation, delivering FireIce® ST and its unique suppression properties, capable of withstanding several thousand degrees, where it is needed to both cool and encapsulate the batteries in a module, preventing a runaway event.
At the present time, our kit has been included in bids by several commercial firms. In addition, several large lithium battery manufacturers are also in various stages of evaluation for their customized use and deployment of the kit.
