Impulse Storm · RadEX Foam
Why synthetic foam has extinguished a large storage tank only once — and only because of fluorine. And how biotechnology resolved the problem.
The suppression of full-surface fires in large atmospheric storage tanks remains among the least resolved problems in industrial fire protection. The empirical record is unambiguous: over the past two decades, fluorine-containing foam has achieved this outcome on a genuinely large tank essentially once — and only by operating at the extreme limit of what global firefighting logistics can deliver.
In 2001, a fire at the Orion terminal in the United States, involving a storage tank 82.4 metres in diameter, was extinguished with aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF). The operation consumed foam concentrate at 3.6 times the baseline defined by NFPA 11, required the mobilisation of resources from seven companies, and lasted thirteen hours. This was not a routine suppression but the upper bound of what fluorinated foam could accomplish.
AFFF is now being withdrawn on account of its environmental persistence and toxicity, and is being replaced by synthetic fluorine-free foams (FFF). Under the UL 162 classification, however, FFF requires 1.5–2 times more concentrate to attain equivalent effectiveness. Applied to a fire of the Orion scale, this corresponds to a demand of 5.5–7.3 times the NFPA 11 baseline — a volume that no oil terminal in the world can realistically store or deliver.
The consequence is documented in incident data rather than merely asserted: since 2001, no large storage tank has been extinguished by fluorine-free foam under real fire conditions. The substitute chemistry, although environmentally preferable, does not meet the logistical reality of large-tank suppression.
Against this background, we developed a fundamentally different agent. RadEX foam is based on rhamnolipids — biogenic glycolipid biosurfactants obtained by microbial synthesis. Within the UL 162 framework it is classified, formally, in the same «synthetic» category as FFF, since it contains neither fluorine nor hydrolysed protein. The physics of its foam blanket, however, is entirely different: the rhamnolipid film forms a dense, cohesive and durable barrier that arrests combustion almost instantly and prevents reignition.
In a full-scale tank test, with the foam applied through a fuel layer 15 metres deep, three results were confirmed simultaneously: extinguishment within seconds, a stable and persistent foam blanket, and complete biodegradability of the agent. The test is recorded in full below and requires little commentary.
Full-scale tank test: RadEX rhamnolipid foam applied through a 15-metre fuel layer.
The direction of the field is therefore clear. AFFF is leaving the market because it is toxic and persistent; fluorine-free foam imposes concentrate volumes that large terminals cannot supply; biogenic foam already performs the task under full-scale conditions — and leaves no environmental trace.
A fluorine-free agent that extinguishes a large storage tank and degrades without residue is no longer a hypothesis — it exists, and it has been demonstrated.
