Fraport Aviation Academy announces a new partnership with STHAMER, one of the leading researchers, developers and producers of foam fire extinguishing compounds, as it prepares for stricter European legislative requirements, develops safer aviation foam training, and tries to decrease the overall impact of fire intervention on the environment and health of firefighters.
Growing environmental awareness and the related requirements are becoming increasingly challenging for the field of firefighting, but they also promote the development of environmentally sound technologies and products. This particularly affects firefighting with foam agents; there is a push to replace the currently most-used foam agent worldwide, AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam), with Fluorine-Free Foam, which has been developed to avoid issues with recent European regulations on fluorine-containing chemicals.
AFFF is known for its high performance, which is based on fluoro-organic compounds such as fluorosurfactants and fluoropolymers. As these chemicals make foam bubbles fuel repellent, AFFF has proven to be very efficient at extinguishing chemical and petrochemical fires. However, apart from its lack of biodegradability, it poses hazards to health and the environment, and so its use is going to become more and more limited by both legal restrictions and the fear of liability issues following AFFF-use.
Fluorine-Free Foam agents have been known for a long time, and under the pressure on AFFF have improved significantly and are now able to yield a fire performance similar to AFFF if properly applied.