Protective Clothing Flame Retardant Clothing

Maintaincontinuityandadvancement,Promote diversification and integration, One interpretation of GB 8965.12020″Protective Clothing Flame Retardant Clothing”

AnBiao
(Nantong Xiexihao Safety Technology Co., LTD., South Jiangsu 226600)

GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant clothing for protective clothing” is mandatoryThe national standard, jointly issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation and the Ministry of Emergency Management on July 23, 2020, will officially come into force on August 1, 2021, and the original GB 8965.1-2009 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” will be abolished on the same day. That is, from August 1, 2021, the flame retardant clothing version of GB 8965.1-2020 shall prevail for the use or reference of flame retardant clothing standards.GB 8965.1-2020 “Protective clothing flame retardant clothing” by emergency tubeDepartment of management and centralized management. The author participated in the revision and review of the standard in the whole process. The following is a brief interpretation of the standard based on my understanding, and a simple explanation of the continuity, advancement and other important revision contents of the standard, as well as the attention points of the application of the standard.

1. Continuity of standards

GB 8965.1-2020 flame retardant Clothing for Protective clothing inherits the flame retardant test method and physical and chemical properties test method stipulated in GB8965.1-2009 Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing. And still use GB/T5455-2014 “Textile combustion Performance vertical damage length, Smoldering and continuing time determination” vertical combustion test method, washing method and number, but the quoted test standard version is different, so that manufacturers do not need to buy new testing equipment, maintain good continuity. The testing methods of physical and chemical properties such as tensile breaking strength, tearing strength, color fastness, pilling, formaldehyde content and moisture absorption rate were not changed.

2. The advancement of standards

The advanced nature of standard is the key point of standard revision. The revision of the standard refers to the new development trend of international flame retardant standard, and on the basis of full investigation, thinking and discussion, the extension of part of the standard product is extended, and some key technical indicators are set up。Reasonable and necessary revisions have been made to the indicators to enhance the flame retardant and verifiability of the products, guide the products to develop in a more comfortable, hygienic and environmental friendly direction, and enhance the sustainable development capacity of the industry.

2.1 Adding items

GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant clothing for protective clothing” has been explicitly addedThe flame-retardant knitted products change the situation that GB 8965.1-2009 flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing is limited to woven fabrics, and allow the existence of disposable flame retardant clothing without washing, which effectively meets the specific requirements for the diversity of flame retardant clothing of all walks of life, is conducive to the diversification of products and promote the overall development of the industry. At the same time, increased the lining flame retardant requirements.

In addition, the index of dummy detonation injury rate is also added, which is the international advanced core index to measure the effect of flame retardancy. Increase flasmoxing verification test, so that enterprises can be more assured to equip flame-retardant clothing, clarify the actual protective effect of flame-retardant clothing, and improve the personal protection level of workers in the flammable and explosive working environment with the ultimate goal of truly reducing personnel injury and improving the protective effect. GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” requires that the sum of second-class and third-class burn rates of Grade B products should not be higher than 50%, and that of Grade A products should not be higher than 25%. The setting of Grade A indicators is A significant embodiment of the advancement of China’s standards, and Grade A products can reach the world-class level.

GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant clothing for Protective clothing” adds the definition of intrinsic flame retardant and post-treatment flame retardant. There is no test distinction between intrinsic flame retardants and post-treated flame retardants, only that manufacturers are required to clearly declare and label them. According to the terminology definition in GB8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing”, the flame retardant property of essential flame retardant products is determined by the flame retardant property of the fabric materials, without any flame retardant treatment, and the flame retardant property of post-treated flame retardant products needs to be obtained through flame retardant post-treatment.This determines the two types of products completely different process routes and very different product characteristics. The material or material combination of essential flame retardant products must be flame retardant, yarn must be flame retardant, fabric and finished products must be flame retardant, the flame retardant of the material does not decay due to the increase of washing times in use. Post-processing general cambrayon based flame retardant polyester fabric, cotton, cotton, nylon cloth or use viscose instead of cotton cloth, itself does not have the flame retardancy, soaking and coating in dyeing before or after, ammonia fume and other physical or chemical processing method, the fiber surface or grafting of flame retardants, once appear, flame retardant failure, loss caused by inadequate, The flame retardancy of the product will also change accordingly. The flame retardant content is generally 20 to 25 percent, causing partial distortion of clothing components. Because post-processing flame retardant may use flame retardant containing formaldehyde, the product may continue to release formaldehyde, production may produce organic phosphorus and other health and environmental problems, which is the focus of attention. Gb8965.1-2020 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” requires that material components be marked, and it is clear that essential flame retardant or post-treatment flame retardant is to provide real information for consumers’ choice and give consumers full right to know. GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” does not distinguish between essential flame retardant and post-treatment flame retardant products, but uses the same technical indicators to promote the post-treatment flame retardant process to be more environmentally friendly and the product to be more hygienic, in line with the overall development direction of the society and the public concept of health and environmental protection.

Due to the revision of flame retardant clothing standards, the country is also formulating mandatory national standards for personal protective equipment.  Gb39800.1-2020 “Personal protective equipment equipment specification (General)”, AND GB 39800.2-2020 “Personal protective equipment specification — Part 2: Petroleum, chemical industry, natural Gas”, GB 39800.3-2020 “Personal protective equipment specification — Part 3:  Metallurgy, Non-ferrous metals and GB 39800.4-2020 Personal Protective Equipment Specification part 4: Non-coal Mines have been issued on December 31, 2020, and will be mandatory from January 1, 2022.  The mandatory national standard for personal protective equipment stipulates that flame-retardant clothing with anti-static function should be equipped in flammable and explosive working environment.  Therefore, the use of flame retardant clothing industry, the number of employees will increase significantly, which must fully consider the comfort of users.  In this revision, added the comfortable and hygienic index of the product.  For example, the index of air permeability is added, mainly for summer products;  The index of undetectable decomposition of carcinogenic aromatic amine dyes was increased.  Increase the index of no peculiar smell;  For lining material, the formaldehyde content is required not to be higher than 75mg/kg. Work clothes are the clothes that employees wear for a long time and have high functional requirements, especially in summer, which directly contact with the skin.  If formaldehyde and other carcinogens exceed the standard, the health of workers will cause harm, do not meet the advanced requirements of the standard.  The limit of 75mg/kg formaldehyde for skin contact is still maintained, but the scope of application has been expanded.  It is clearly stipulated in section 5.1.1.2 of GB8965.1-2020 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” that the physical and chemical properties of the collar, cuff and trouser parts of the whole summer clothing, spring and autumn clothing and winter clothing should meet the requirements of direct skin contact.  

2.2 Adjustment Items  

In addition to the above added items, gb8965.1-2020 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” has also made many revisions to the technical indicators of the existing items.  From GB 8965.1-2009 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” to GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing”, the revision of the standard spans 11 years. Great changes have taken place in China’s economic development level, production technology level and consumption concept.  The main body of industrial workers has also changed from post-60s and post-70s to post-80s, post-90s and even post-00s, so it is reasonable and necessary to make appropriate adjustments.  

Fire retardant CLASS C has been eliminated.  In the original standard, grade C requires no more than 5 seconds of continuous combustion, no more than 150mm of damage length, and very low flame retardant requirements.  There is no international regulation that the flame should not exceed 5 seconds, and the products submitted for inspection are mainly GRADE B or above. 

The application scope of the thermal protection performance index (TPP) is expanded from class A to both Class A and CLASS B, which is helpful for product verification  。

The definition of smiting follows the changes in ISO 15025:2016 protective clothing – Fire Protection against Heat – Test Methods for Limiting the spread of Flame and changes the smiting time for class B from not more than 2 seconds to 4 seconds.  Simply put, the red dot expands to smoulder, and the red dot shrinks to the cooling process, not counting smoulder time.  The modification of smoldering definition fully respects the actual situation of vertical combustion system and relives the pressure for the experimentals’ judgment.  2 seconds of vertical combustion smouldering is likely to be caused by the long cooling time of heavy fabric or material with high flame retardant. The experimentals have no time to think within 2 seconds, which is easy to cause misjudgment.  This revision, let the experimentalists pay more attention to the length of continued combustion and damage, the experimental results more representative of the real level of the product.  In NFPA2112 flame-retardant clothing standard, smouldering index is not required, and the modification of smouldering in this revision is also in line with the international development direction.  

For breaking strength, change to measure before and after washing, and set index by gram weight.  For products over 200g/㎡, the index remains unchanged.  For products not more than 200g/㎡, set to not less than 300 N. There is no shirt and jacket jacket physical indicators for the same, more scientific and reasonable.  Tear strength setting, also used the principle of gram weight regulation, improve more than 200g/㎡ product indicators.  The overalls are not much torn, torn, hanging broken.  Improve tearing strength to meet the requirements of practical use.  Moisture permeability from not less than 6000g/(㎡·24h) to not less than 5000 g/(㎡·24h).  Based on the actual test data of the testing institutions, the vast majority of qualified products are close to 6000g/(㎡·24h), the same product, due to the inevitable reasonable slight differences in the test data of the testing institutions, is likely to form a qualified or unqualified judgment of the product.  Refer to the corresponding specifications of fire protection and other protective clothing, and ensure that the corresponding specifications are no less than 5000g/(㎡·24h).  

3 Precautions for standard use  

3.1 Selection of intrinsic flame retardancy and post-treatment flame retardancy  

The new standard does not exclude post-treatment flame retardant products, but the tendency of the new standard to guide industrial upgrading exists objectively.  Post-treatment flame retardant products are essential for formaldehyde control and improvement of tear strength.  To put it simply, the essential flame retardant is basically composed of Arlene, polyimide, modified polyacrylonitrile (also known as nitrile-chloramide, flame retardant acrylic), aromatic sulfone fiber, flame retardant viscose, PBI, PBO, POD and other flame retardant materials as the main body.  Among them, because denatured polyacrylonitrile has gas phase flame retardant characteristics, mixing the same amount of cotton, viscose, hemp and other non-flame retardant cellulose fiber or a small amount of polyester or nylon and other chemical fibers, can keep the flame retardant performance of the fabric as a whole does not decline, in the essential flame retardant system into the natural non-flame retardant fiber, is conducive to the improvement of comfort.  Except FOR PBI and PBO, China has achieved the mass production of the above flame-retardant fibers. In particular, the arylene fiber of Yantai Taihe has reached the international advanced level. The quality and output can meet the needs of domestic development, and import substitution can be completely realized.  Domestic polyimide fiber develops rapidly and many indexes have reached or exceeded the advanced level of foreign countries.  PBI and PBO fibers are expensive, have immutable defects, and are generally not used in flame retardant tools.  If the use of cotton, viscose, polyester (polyester), nylon (polyamide) and other non-flame retardant fiber as the main body, must be flame retardant post-treatment to achieve flame retardant requirements.  Because flame retardant products according to the regulations can not appear melting  Polyester, nylon including flame retardant polyester and flame retardant nylon, therefore should not be used in large quantities.  There are many criteria for judging the flame retardancy of flame retardant materials. The requirements for flame retardancy of flame retardant clothing are not only based on the performance of materials to prevent combustion, but also based on the protective performance of the wearer’s skin. The use of molten and melting drop fibers must be based on the actual flame retardancy test and dummy flasmoxing verification data.  Considering the batch difference of post-processing flame retardant products is larger, active selection of essential flame retardant products is more reliable, if necessary. For post-processing flame retardant products, in addition to the necessary effective finalize report, it is recommended that a third party’s flame retardant,  Flashover, formaldehyde/breaking strength and other important indicators test report.  

3.2 Individual indicators of the standard  

7.1 The test items in this Standard are classified as A, B and C.  No more than 2 class C failures and no more than 1 class B failure are allowed.  At the same time, no more than 1 category C unqualified.  For example, the breathability and appearance requirements classified as Class C are both class C.  The air permeability of summer clothing has a great impact on comfort, preferably higher than 100mm/s, but for high weight spring and autumn or winter clothing, there is no need to strictly require air permeability.  After all, permeability and thermal insulation effect is the opposite requirement, the use of units can be flexible.  Generally speaking, not less than 30mm/s, it will not cause the internal condensation of clothing.  Such as flame retardant clothing plus oil and water resistance or acid and alkali resistance of clothing, appropriate reduction of air permeability is beneficial to maintain these functions.  

3.3 About the equipment of flame retardant clothing  

The first article of GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame Retardant Clothing for Protective Clothing” clearly stipulates that it is applicable to places where there is open fire, sparks or inflammable and explosive substances and flassion risk.  The workplace with inflammable and explosive risks is prone to mass deaths and injuries after accidents.  According to GB39800 series of equipment specifications, personnel in the risk area should be in accordance with the principle of high not low, with anti-static function of flame retardant clothing.  The main standard is GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant Clothing for protective clothing”, the same  Comply with the requirements of GB 12014-2019 Protective Clothing ANTIstatic Clothing for fabric resistance and electric quantity of clothing.  Safety management personnel, inspection personnel and maintenance personnel shall be assigned according to the same principle.  For some areas involving power transformation, distribution, special maintenance, can be equipped with flame retardant, anti-static, anti-arc and even live work shielding suit, chemical suit for operation.  In European and American countries, flame-retardant, anti-arc, anti-static multi-functional protective clothing has become a development trend, part of the clothing also requires fluorescent high visible fabric as the main body, plus flame retardant reflective strip, the protective performance toward diversification, comprehensive direction.  

The above is the author’s simple interpretation of GB 8965.1-2020 “Flame retardant Clothing for Protective clothing”. Please correct it because of the limited level.  If you have For any mistake or doubt, please refer to the explanation of National Technical Committee on Personal Protective Equipment of Standardization Administration.