New eco-friendly ice to fight fire

When the experts speak, it’s hard to imagine there can be anything wrong. As is proven in the case of this new research where scientist Toshihisa Ueda and his colleagues in Japan have reported the development of a new type of ice that may provide a more efficient, environment-friendly method for putting out fires, including out-of control blazes that destroy homes and forests. Keeping in mind the old theory that firefighters have used water and carbon dioxide (CO2) as fire extinguishing agents for decades, they worked on seeing if carbon dioxide hydrates, frozen crystals made of water and CO2 bonded together, may serve as promising fire-suppressing materials.

To test their idea, the scientists used a special reactor to produce tiny pellets of carbon dioxide hydrates in the laboratory and found that it used less water than ordinary ice and released less carbon dioxide than dry ice.
[The Japan News]