3M Guarantees Product Won't Be Banned

Fire protection systems made by companies like Tyco, Siemens, and United Technologies often use “clean agents” like Novec 1230. The chemical is liquid at room temperature, but those systems expel it as a gas, and it disperses into the atmosphere instead of reconstituting as a liquid. Controlled environments such as rooms with high-value electronics, ships, generator rooms, pump rooms, paint lockers, and museums often use these systems rather than sprinklers. 3M markets Novec 1230, a fluoroketone, as an environmentally preferable choice over halons, production of which is banned due to ozone-depletion potential, and hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which have a high global-warming potential (GWP). GWP measures the estimated potential of a greenhouse gas to contribute to global warming, compared with carbon dioxide. According to 3M, Novec 1230 has zero ozone-depletion potential, a GWP value of one (equal to that of carbon dioxide), and an atmospheric lifetime of five days, as having low acute and chronic toxicity.

Joe Koch, 3M’s business manager for Novec fluids, said that consumers of fire protection fluid have been bounced from halons to HCFCs and HFCs, and environmental concerns now are arising with those chemicals. “Novec 1230 has been on the market for a few years now,” said Koch, “and we look at it as a sustainable product in the long-term.” The 20-year warranty term is somewhat arbitrary, Koch told