Evaluation of interfacial, micellar, and foaming properties of the solutions comprising fluorocarbon surfactant, cocamidopropyl betaine, and Gleditsia saponin as fire-extinguishing agents

The interfacial, micellar, and foam properties of unitary, binary, and ternary aqueous solutions containing a non-ionic fluorocarbon surfactant (FC-170C), an ionic hydrocarbon surfactant (CAB), and Gleditsia sapo-nin (GS) were comprehensively investigated. FC-170C showed the highest surface activity and micelliza-tion ability, CAB and GS showed the strongest foaming ability and foam stability, respectively. For binary mixtures, the interaction in each pair of mixtures synergistically enhanced the ability of surface tension reduction, but had little synergistic effect on the efficiency of surface tension reduction. For the ternary mixtures, at an optimal formulation of 7.43 x 10-6 mol/L FC-170C, 5.26 x 10-3 mol/L CAB, and 1.60 x 10-4 mol/L GS, the values of c, h0, R5min, and bubble size were 17.3 mN/m, 117 mm, 98%, and 115-116 lm, respectively. In particular, the required amount of fluorocarbon was reduced to 6.78 mg/kg, which is significantly<50 mg/kg limit set by international conventions for fire extinguishing agents. CO 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.