Toxicity characteristics of commercially manufactured insulation materials for building applications in Taiwan

Abstract

The use of thermal insulation materials for building applications is a promising technique but further investigations are needed in this area in order to enhance fire prevention. An experimental study has been carried out to determine toxicity characteristics of commercially manufactured insulation materials, according to UK Naval Engineering standards 713 (NES-713) and colorimetric analysis. Four materials, covering organic foamy and inorganic materials of most of insulation materials used in Taiwan, have been chosen. The various colorimetric gas reaction tubes were used to measure toxic constituents and contents. Toxicity index (TI) was then calculated to evaluate the combustion characteristic of the specimens. The influences of toxic constituents and contents on the toxicity characteristic of testing materials were examined. It was found that significant differences existed between organic foamy and inorganic materials. The results showed that the organic foamy materials, polyethylene foam and polyurethane foam, which did not meet the requirements of the low fire hazard material and were unfavorable in the building’s fire prevention. Finally, it was also observed that the results promote the real knowledge of these insulation materials by using the quantitative analysis to explicate the toxicity chemicals and types and can be important references for fire hazard analysis and developing materials in the future.

Introduction

The use of thermal insulation materials in building has become prevalent in recent years. Thermal insulation is just one part of the overall fire resistance concern, but one that is not well understood with regard to how these materials behave under toxicity characteristics in Taiwan. This fact significantly influenced overall finishing materials safety including the toxicity characteristics of combustion. One challenge that researchers, manufacturers, designers face is how to select insulation materials that can achieve an acceptable level of safety.

The necessity of insulation becomes clear when considering the increase in the typical insulation thickness required in European countries over the years [1]. It is clear that insulation materials have to improve their features in order to achieve the tightened standard. These features should include thermal properties, cost, ease of construction, as well as safety and health issues [2]. The toxicity and irritating fumes, which insulation materials produce, are discussed in this paper.

Some other papers conducted research on their performances in other fire prevention domains including ignitability, flame spread and smoke generation property [3], [4]. Previous studies have concluded that the toxicity of smoke is the main reason of death from lots of major fire accidents in Taiwan [5], [6]. Toxicity characteristics of the insulation material are very important according to the statistics of the United States, which revealed that the majority of persons who died in fires perish due to toxic gas inhalation instead of burns, generalized trauma, or other causes [7], [8]. Some test apparatuses have been used to assay the toxic potency in previous studies [9], [10]. A methodology of fire hazard analysis for obtaining and using toxic potency were also reported in the literatures [11], [12]. It is obvious that there is a close relation between security and toxicity of insulation materials.

However, today there is no study carried out to determine and evaluate toxicity characteristics of insulation materials in Taiwan. Therefore, the objective of this study is to quantify toxicity index and toxic gases content of four commercially produced insulation materials to provide an initial data for building material industry. This leads to improvement in insulation and products with better toxicity characteristics and enhance fire protection products for further manufacturing processes and building applications.