FM-200 extinguishes fires primarily by physical means. It has properties which function well with traditional Halon 1301 equipment. It is a colourless gas at standard conditions, exhibiting a boiling point of -16.4°C as compared to a boiling point of -57.8°C for Halon 1301.
Through the use of properly designed equipment, FM-200 will mix well in a protected enclosure to provide a homogenous mixture in air. Since Halon 1301 is typically super-pressurised to either 25 bar or 42 bar for fire suppression applications, FM-200 is super-pressurised to achieve rapid discharge into the protected environment.
The liquid density of Halon 1301 at 21°C is 1.32 kg/L and for FM-200 is 1.12 kg/L. The characteristic that determines the amount of agent that can be safely stored in a given cylinder is the maximum fill density.
Kidde Fire Protection advises that the maximum fill density for a cylinder of FM-200 pressurised with nitrogen to 360 psi is 1.15 g cm-3. Accordingly, the storage capacity for FM-200 is around 1.5 times that of Halon 1301, the closest of all viable replacement agents
As the concerns over stratospheric ozone protection have developed in recent years, it is clearly understood that any agent that is expected to be available for use in the market on a long term basis would have to offer zero ODP. Since FM-200 contains no chlorine or bromine and does not possess the properties associated with the compounds thought to damage stratospheric ozone it has an ozone depletion potential of zero
FM-200 is a very stable compound and in the absence of excessive moisture is not expected to react with common construction materials such as metals and polymers. Tests show that elastomers such as some EPDM materials and nitrile compounds perform well with FM-200.
In order for a fire to be sustained, the three components fuel, oxygen and heat, must be present in sufficient quantities, and at sufficient levels. If one of the three elements is removed the fire will be suppressed.
Fire is the physical manifestation of a series of high heat-releasing chemical reactions between fuel and oxygen.
While a proportion of the heat is dissipated to the surroundings, sufficient heat must be returned to the fuel in order for it to vaporise and continue the combustion process. Physically-acting extinguishing agents act by absorbing heat and disturbing this dynamic energy balance. Introduction of sufficient agent into the fire gases reduces the flame temperature to a limiting value below which flame propagation cannot occur