Al Jazeera Paints promotes new coat
01 March 2007
Leading Saudi Arabia-based paint manufacturer Al Jazeera Paints Company has recently launched a fire-retardant coating, which the company is keen to promote in the region.
The water-based intumescent coating has been especially formulated to meet the requirements set by the latest international standards and is suitable for the protection of structural elements such as timber, steel and concrete within buildings, says a spokesman for the company.
“Fire accidents have a big effect on humanity and there are many ways to prevent or stop it from spreading. For example, timber starts burning from the outer circumference in circles before going into the centre core. However, experience has shown that in the event of a fire, timber-bearing structures allow more time before collapse than their steel counterparts,” says a company spokesperson.
He continues: “Steel has a high thermal conductivity and is highly vulnerable to high temperatures under the influence of fire. At high temperatures of between 450 and 600 deg C, steel profiles distort and become weaker, which could lead to collapse. With rising temperature and a fire lasting more than 30 minutes, the steel structure will fail completely. As for concrete elements, they do not burn under fire but their physical properties are highly affected.
“There have been several accidents related to fire and one way of minimizing the damage they cause is to use fire-retardant coatings. Hence, fire-retardant coatings are becoming essential and their use is even mandatory in many parts of the world, especially in public buildings such as airports, theatres, hospitals, sports arenas, schools, production facilities and petrochemical, petroleum and gas plants,” he says.
“Al Jazeera’s fire-retardant coatings, which are environmental-friendly, can provide more than an hour of fire protection, depending on the flame strength and film thickness of the coating,” he adds.
Elaborating on how these coatings function, the spokesman says: “When a layer of Al Jazeera fire-retardant coating is exposed to extreme heat, as the result of a fire, the binder starts melting and further chemical reactions take place, which also release gases. The film will swell and expand 50 to 100 times to its original size to build a char barrier that insulates the underlying substrate. This coating also possesses other properties such as adhesion, colour retention and weather resistance.”
Established in 1979 in Riyadh, Al Jazeera Paints has expanded its product portfolio to cater to a wide range of needs for both architectural and industrial paints, focusing on developing products that are durable and reliable and can effectively protect industrial and building surfaces from the problems of decay and corrosion from environmental conditions.
Its range of paints has been
certified by internationally-renowned laboratories such as Germanischer Lloyds, TNO, WRAS and COT, which confirm that they comply with international standards and are environmentally-friendly. The company also holds ISO-140001 and ISO-9001 certification for its environmental management and quality management policies, says the spokesman.
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