What all our solutions have in common is the water mist with fog cannon. We took advantage of the fact that tiny water droplets greatly increase the surface area of used water.
But why is water mist so effective in a variety of applications? How does it work? Briefly summarized the action mode of water mist in fire extinguishing, gas suppression, dust suppression and so on.
Fire extinguishing: The advantage of these small water droplets is that they can form a larger water surface, so they can form a larger surface area to absorb heat. The fine mist also has a low settling velocity and can surround burning objects. It can even reach hidden fire sources that cannot be reached by traditional hoses.
From the viewpoint of physics and thermodynamics, there are several mechanisms for water mist to extinguish fire at the same time. The water mist mainly effectively cools the fire plume and the fuel surface, extracting a lot of heat from it. This is due to the high latent heat of evaporation (2442J/g) of water. In addition, the water mist replaces and dilutes the oxygen and fuel vapor in the flame. This is due to the high expansion rate (1700 times) when the water mist evaporates into steam. Finally, as a second mechanism, the water mist also absorbs radiant energy, thus acting as a thermal barrier, preventing the surrounding surface (or the fuel itself) from being heated by the radiation.
Gas suppression: Water can absorb gas naturally, but fine water mist can absorb gas faster and more effectively. The finer the sprayed water drop, the higher the water surface formed, because the water surface is inversely proportional to the size of the water drop. The water surface is the interface where gas is absorbed into the water. Therefore, the fine water mist creates a condition where the absorption of gas occurs easier and faster. Once the gas is absorbed by the water, it can be collected and processed in a controlled manner.
Dust suppression: Water droplets are atomized into fine water mist, which combines with dust particles in the air to make dust particles heavy and fall to the ground. The size of the water droplets is essential for effective dust control: the size of the water droplets must be similar to the size of the dust particles so that they can stick to the dust particles. This means that larger droplets combine with larger dust particles, and smaller droplets combine with smaller particles.