China's fire protection coating market needs to enforce standards and norms

The business club reported on July 13 that frequent fire accidents and increasingly stringent fire protection standards in recent years have made fire retardant coatings increasingly valued by the industry, especially in the application of some modern facilities. However, in the paint industry, what kind of status is the fireproof coating in the end? What are the rules and requirements for China's policies and standards? What are the application areas of fire retardant coatings? With all sorts of doubts and puzzles, HC has started exploring the mileage of fire retardant coatings.

China's fire protection coating market, "to force" and "missing"

Combustion is a rapid and intense oxidation reaction with flames. The reaction is very complex. The combustion must be produced and carried out in three conditions at the same time, ie, combustible materials, combustion aids, and ignition sources. In order to prevent the progress of the combustion, it is necessary to cut off any of the three elements in the combustion process, such as lowering the temperature, insulating the air, or combustibles.

Fire-retardant paint is based on the combustion of this basis, for the flammable substrate surface, reduce the flammability of the surface of the material being coated, block the rapid spread of the fire, protect the substrate from direct contact with the air and delay the ignition time and the burning speed of the object. , Or decomposition of non-combustible inert gas, dilute the flammable gas of the object to be protected by thermal decomposition, so that it is flame-retardant or non-combustible, is a special coating to improve the fire-resistant limit of the material being coated.

In addition, fire-retardant coatings also have rust-proof, water-repellent, anti-corrosion, abrasion-resistant, heat-resistant, and coating toughness, colorability, adhesion, easy drying, and a certain degree of gloss and other performance characteristics. According to their use areas can be divided into: decorative fire-retardant coatings, wood fire-retardant coatings, steel fire-retardant coatings, fire-retardant concrete structure coatings, fire-retardant tunnel coatings, fire-retardant cable coatings.

Water-based fire-retardant coatings still have performance "defects" to be upgraded. With the continuous expansion of fire-retardant coating applications, and the increasing improvement of environmental protection regulations, water-based paints have become green trends, health, environmental protection and other environmental performance, and fire-retardant coatings naturally also become the trend of the industry. Included in it. According to the HC I understand that China's water-based fire-retardant coatings from the film-forming properties can be divided into: synthetic polymer emulsion type, water-soluble resin type, inorganic binder type several major categories.

Among these types of water-based fire-retardant coatings, inorganic binder type fire-retardant coatings are friendly to the environment, but there are still some technically insurmountable deficiencies in the physical and chemical properties of the coatings. Although the water-soluble amino resin and urea-formaldehyde resin have very good comprehensive fireproof effect, they lack the good environmental protection performance due to their high formaldehyde content and are not favored by the market.

It is understood that most of the water-based fire-retardant coatings currently used in the market are synthetic polymer emulsions. With the efforts of researchers, this kind of fire-retardant coating can achieve the national first-class finish fire-retardant coating standard and have high decorative properties. However, it is also difficult to store and apply at low temperatures. Emulsions themselves contain different degrees of solvents or coalescents, and there are obvious shortcomings such as water resistance and adhesion in comparison with solvent-based coatings. .

China's fire protection coating standards "to force" and "missing"

At present, China's fire-retardant coating production enterprises have grown to more than 200, fire-retardant coating annual production and sales have reached tens of thousands of tons, and the establishment of a relatively perfect standard system. According to the HC I understand that mandatory national standards include: "Code for fire protection in architectural design", "Code for fire protection design of high-rise civil buildings", "Fire protection coating for steel structures", etc.; the recommended specifications are "Technical Specifications for Fire Protection of Building Steel Structures". Test standard "Technical Code for Application of Fire Protection Coatings for Steel Structures".

According to industry insiders, the standards and specifications for Chinese fire-retardant coatings are very "powerful." The strictness of requirements is no less than that of foreign countries, and even some indicators are higher than foreign standards. For example, when China requires buildings to meet Class I fire resistance, the fire resistance limit of the “pillars” in the building components is 3 hours, and the fire resistance limit in the second class is 2.5 hours. In contrast, the British Fire Code does not specify the fire-retardant time, but the designer determines the fire-time according to the actual situation.

It is understood that although China's fire-retardant coatings have very strict standards and specifications, there are still many problems in practical application, which have been fully reflected in China's frequent fire accidents. According to industry experts, the serious fire damage in China is directly related to the improper use of fire retardant coating materials. In the event of a fire, the fire-retardant coating prevents the temperature of the protected material from rising to keep the structure of the object intact or the temperature of the material too high, providing sufficient time for people to safely evacuation and extinguishment, in order to reduce the loss of assets and to the surrounding environment. influences.

In addition, there are several reasons that have led to the improper use of fire retardant coatings. First, people often feel lucky that they don't use fire retardant coatings in accordance with the relevant regulations. Second, they blindly save costs and choose low-cost fire-retardant coatings. Third, counterfeit products produced by some unscrupulous companies enter the market. , so that it lost the role of fire protection.

Fire-fighting coating new technology "achievement hopes to achieve better market"

Since the first fire retardant coating formulation was developed in 1837, after decades of development, the fire retardant coating has developed into a special coating that combines water resistance, heat resistance, rust prevention, and corrosion resistance. In recent years, with the development of tunnel construction and steel structure facilities in China, domestic and foreign companies have launched their own latest products and technologies for fire-retardant coatings in these fields.

It is understood that AkzoNobel's international paint company recently launched a new type of water-based intumescent fire-retardant coating. This kind of fire-retardant coating not only does not contain volatile organic compounds and chlorine, but also reduces the construction cost per square meter of intumescent coating. At the beginning of this year, Jiangxi Longzheng Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd. launched an independent fire retardant paint for JX-108 new tunnel. The product has high fire resistance, sound absorption and noise reduction effect, strong adhesion, and resistance to water, acid and alkali. Good features, good decorative effect on the tunnel.

China's fire-retardant coating market started late, but with the advancement of economic construction and various infrastructure facilities, and the country’s rigid requirements for the flame retardancy of public building facilities coatings, coupled with foreign fire protection companies after entering the domestic market, etc. Impact, for now, both in terms of technology and market prospects, China's fire protection coatings have a very good space for development. Of course, in this era of green and environmental protection as the main trend, improving the technical transformation and product upgrading of environmentally-friendly fireproof coatings seems to have been "imminent."