FIRE RESISTANT PAINT

By Spandana and Jigyasha

By Spandana and Jigyasha

Background

I chose this topic because home fires damage about 400,000 homes, and cause just under
13,48,50,00,000 in direct damage annually in India. Because of the importance of prevention, fire
retardation has become a very important industry. This fire resistant paint will help reduce most of the
cases of fire damage.
 This experiment is to test the
possibility of adding KHCO3 in paint
(which contains organic compounds)
and its fire- extinguishing
characteristics. If KHCO3 can be

Introduction successfully added to paint without

producing any by- products, this
new fire resistant paint can save a
lot of lives and diminish damages
caused by fire.
I expect the paint to be fire
resistant after mixing KHCO3 or
NaHCO3 without forming any bi-
products.
➔ Spray paint was invented due to a need. Francis Davis
Millet is credited with the invention of spray paint while
working under tight deadlines to complete construction for
the Chicago World’s Fair.
➔ Even a small candle flame will burn at 1,800 degrees
Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius).
➔ Coal located underground in Australia (Burning Mountain)
has been burning for over 6,000 years.
 Possible
answers
Possible 1. When KHCO3 or NaHCO3 is sprinkled into the area

questions
where the fire is taking place, because of the
available heat, it easily to be decomposed to
release CO2 and water vapor to quench the flame.
2. There are generally three components in paint:
binder, diluent, and additives. However, only the
1. What is the use of KHCO3 or NaHCO3 in fire
binder is absolutely required. The binder is the part
extinguishing?
which eventually solidifies to form the dried paint
2. What are the constituents of paint?
film. The diluent serves to adjust the viscosity of
3. What is the purpose of this experiment?
paint. It is volatile and does not become part of the
paint film. Anything else is an additive.
3. The aim of the experiment was to test the
possibility of adding NaHCO3 and KHCO3 (in form
of ash) into paint which contains organic
compounds and evaluated its fire-extinguishing
characteristics.
 ❖ Buy some fresh paint and and
some amount of KHCO3 or
NaHCO3 .
❖ Mix the paint and the chemicals
thoroughly.
❖ Paint a log or piece of wood and
Experiment let it dry for a few days.
❖ After the log dries completely, try
to ignite the log of wood.
We observe that the log of wood takes a
lot of time to catch fire. It is also observed
that a lot of CO2 is released but there is
very minimal flame and the burnt area
only has a slight brown mark.
Result
1. It is completely possible for NaHCO3 or KHCO3 to add in paint without producing any by- products. In
addition, these two chemical powders are very tiny and does not affect to the smoothness of paint.
2. NaHCO3 and KHCO3 still maintain their fire extinguished characteristic after added in paint. The amount of
CO2 automatically released is enough to retard the spreading out of fire.
FUTURE WORK
I would like to work on reducing the amount of
smoke and CO2 that is released during the
reaction.
● http://www.projects.juliantrubin.com/science_fair_project/chemistry/fire_retardant_1.html
● Elder brother
● Friends