CarbonX firesuit material
01-01-2004, 08:39 PM
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CarbonX firesuit material
Saw this article in a hardcopy of Forbes, found the online version. Sounds pretty amazing! Always makes me feel better to read about this stuff in a business magazine, as opposed to some online store marketing blurb.
http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/1222/066.html
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Hot Stuff
Daniel Lyons, 12.22.03
In the never-ending quest for a material impervious to fire, a small Utah firm aims to turn up the heat on mighty DuPont.
Tyler Thatcher holds a penny on a piece of soft black cloth in his open palm, and with a chef's cooking torch heats the penny until it begins to melt. He doesn't flinch. It's a neat parlor trick, the kind that could win him lots of dollar bets at cocktail parties. But Thatcher has bigger goals, as in making a fortune selling CarbonX, the miracle cloth that just saved his hand, to firefighters, steelworkers, chefs and racecar drivers.
"We are not aware of any fabric that has the same protection against flame and heat. This is an entirely different approach to the problem,"says Thatcher, chief executive of Chapman Innovations, a six-employee startup in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Every year engineers come up with new materials to retard or repel flames, but they all fall short in different ways. Cotton treated with chemicals can stand up to a hot steel blast furnace, but if a piece of slag bubbles off and spatters on your sleeve, it will burn right through to your arm. Bromine- and chlorine-based coatings react to heat in a way that neutralizes the gases needed to sustain fire, but their environmental toxicity has put them on the endangered list, especially in Europe.
Thatcher claims CarbonX outperforms everything, even the market-leading fire-resistant fabric Nomex. The problem is that Nomex is already everywhere:racing suits, oven mitts, firefighters' clothing, even the upholstery in airplanes. And Nomex is made by DuPont, the chemical giant, which introduced the fabric 40 years ago.
Thatcher figures he can compete with a multibillion-dollar behemoth with some guerrilla marketing
romoting high-profile customers who have already sought out the product. Larry Dixon, a two-time national champion drag racer, won't climb into his 8,000hp dragster unless he's clad in CarbonX. Thatcher got him to wear the CarbonX logo on his sleeve. Brian Miser, who sets himself on fire and is catapulted out of a cannon every night for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum &Bailey Circus, is another fan: "The Nomex suit only lasted one jump. I couldn't wear it again. The CarbonX suits last 100 jumps."
CarbonX's secret lies in a fiber called oxidized polyacrylonitrile, or O-PAN, essentially a partially baked strand of acrylic material often used in aircraft brakes. O-PAN fibers get charred in a two-step cooking process at nearly 400 degrees Fahrenheit. When exposed to high heat again O-PANfibers continue to char from the outside in. They also expand well beyond original size, crowding out the oxygen needed to sustain a fire. So CarbonX won't burst into flames, even after being exposed to a torch for two minutes. Eventually the whole fiber turns to carbon and becomes useless, but by that time, presumably, the wearer has gotten to safety.
CarbonX got its start in 1997 when Michael Chapman, a maker of racecar cylinder heads, saw a demonstration of O-PAN. "Ithought if I don't take this fabric back to the racers, then shame on me,"recalls Chapman, owner of Chapman Racing Heads inWoods Cross, Utah. By itself, O-PAN was too flimsy to wear, so Chapman hired an engineer in Taiwan and spent $1 million experimenting with different blends that would strengthen the fabric. Today Chapman holds three patents on how O-PAN is blended with a variety of strengthening fibers, including DuPont's Kevlar. Despite the strengthening fibers, CarbonX is still as soft as a pair of socks and even wicks moisture away from the skin.
By 2000 Chapman was selling the fabric to apparel makers for use in racing suits and industrial safety clothes. By 2002 he was seeking investors who could also help manage the business. Tyler Thatcher and some friends had just formed a venture capital firm in Salt Lake City, and in 2003 they acquired 38% of Chapman's company for less than $500,000; they won't disclose exact terms. Chapman is still chairman.
Thatcher is targeting markets like industrial safety, firefighting, motor sports, law enforcement and the military. Chapman makes its own socks, gloves and long underwear. Bigger potential lies in selling fabric to others, like Chicago Protective Apparel, a $10 million (2002 sales) maker of industrial safety clothes, which sees growing demand for CarbonX-based clothing. Chicago Protective expects to sell $250,000 worth of CarbonX clothing in 2003.
http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/1222/066.html
Technology
Hot Stuff
Daniel Lyons, 12.22.03
In the never-ending quest for a material impervious to fire, a small Utah firm aims to turn up the heat on mighty DuPont.
Tyler Thatcher holds a penny on a piece of soft black cloth in his open palm, and with a chef's cooking torch heats the penny until it begins to melt. He doesn't flinch. It's a neat parlor trick, the kind that could win him lots of dollar bets at cocktail parties. But Thatcher has bigger goals, as in making a fortune selling CarbonX, the miracle cloth that just saved his hand, to firefighters, steelworkers, chefs and racecar drivers.
"We are not aware of any fabric that has the same protection against flame and heat. This is an entirely different approach to the problem,"says Thatcher, chief executive of Chapman Innovations, a six-employee startup in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Every year engineers come up with new materials to retard or repel flames, but they all fall short in different ways. Cotton treated with chemicals can stand up to a hot steel blast furnace, but if a piece of slag bubbles off and spatters on your sleeve, it will burn right through to your arm. Bromine- and chlorine-based coatings react to heat in a way that neutralizes the gases needed to sustain fire, but their environmental toxicity has put them on the endangered list, especially in Europe.
Thatcher claims CarbonX outperforms everything, even the market-leading fire-resistant fabric Nomex. The problem is that Nomex is already everywhere:racing suits, oven mitts, firefighters' clothing, even the upholstery in airplanes. And Nomex is made by DuPont, the chemical giant, which introduced the fabric 40 years ago.
Thatcher figures he can compete with a multibillion-dollar behemoth with some guerrilla marketing
romoting high-profile customers who have already sought out the product. Larry Dixon, a two-time national champion drag racer, won't climb into his 8,000hp dragster unless he's clad in CarbonX. Thatcher got him to wear the CarbonX logo on his sleeve. Brian Miser, who sets himself on fire and is catapulted out of a cannon every night for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum &Bailey Circus, is another fan: "The Nomex suit only lasted one jump. I couldn't wear it again. The CarbonX suits last 100 jumps." CarbonX's secret lies in a fiber called oxidized polyacrylonitrile, or O-PAN, essentially a partially baked strand of acrylic material often used in aircraft brakes. O-PAN fibers get charred in a two-step cooking process at nearly 400 degrees Fahrenheit. When exposed to high heat again O-PANfibers continue to char from the outside in. They also expand well beyond original size, crowding out the oxygen needed to sustain a fire. So CarbonX won't burst into flames, even after being exposed to a torch for two minutes. Eventually the whole fiber turns to carbon and becomes useless, but by that time, presumably, the wearer has gotten to safety.
CarbonX got its start in 1997 when Michael Chapman, a maker of racecar cylinder heads, saw a demonstration of O-PAN. "Ithought if I don't take this fabric back to the racers, then shame on me,"recalls Chapman, owner of Chapman Racing Heads inWoods Cross, Utah. By itself, O-PAN was too flimsy to wear, so Chapman hired an engineer in Taiwan and spent $1 million experimenting with different blends that would strengthen the fabric. Today Chapman holds three patents on how O-PAN is blended with a variety of strengthening fibers, including DuPont's Kevlar. Despite the strengthening fibers, CarbonX is still as soft as a pair of socks and even wicks moisture away from the skin.
By 2000 Chapman was selling the fabric to apparel makers for use in racing suits and industrial safety clothes. By 2002 he was seeking investors who could also help manage the business. Tyler Thatcher and some friends had just formed a venture capital firm in Salt Lake City, and in 2003 they acquired 38% of Chapman's company for less than $500,000; they won't disclose exact terms. Chapman is still chairman.
Thatcher is targeting markets like industrial safety, firefighting, motor sports, law enforcement and the military. Chapman makes its own socks, gloves and long underwear. Bigger potential lies in selling fabric to others, like Chicago Protective Apparel, a $10 million (2002 sales) maker of industrial safety clothes, which sees growing demand for CarbonX-based clothing. Chicago Protective expects to sell $250,000 worth of CarbonX clothing in 2003.
01-02-2004, 10:03 AM
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Isn't that the material Bill Simpson was hawking on Wind Tunnel a few weeks ago? He has a new safety equipment company and he was showing off the new driving suits. I could be wrong.
01-02-2004, 10:14 AM
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