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Being old St. Nick comes with its
inherent health hazards: reindeer bites,
high-calorie cookies, unparalleled
holiday stress.
So should Kris Kringle find himself
shimmying down a still-lit chimney, could
a flame-retardant suit help him out? Ho ho
hold on folks, chemistry has the answer. A
fireproof suit seems like the perfect
gift for the man who has everything, and
who fully jumps feet first into strangers
fireplaces. You could theoretically add
flame-retardant compounds to Santa's red
and white getup. This fire safety tactic
is pretty common in North America where
flame-retardant compounds are commonly
found in furniture, electronics,
children's products like car seats and
cribs, and at one time pajamas and other
apparel. Most of these chemicals are
organohalogens--carbon-based molecules
manufactured to contain at least one
type of halogen element like bromine or
chlorine. Retardants are true to
their name and the fact that they slow
fire down rather than stopping it
gives you precious minutes to escape a
burning building, or for the big man to
strip off that jolly death trap. Let's
say the big fella comes down the chimney
but those last few embers haven't gone
out yet and his trouser leg catches on
fire. Now the chemical process of
combustion is in full swing. That's when
a fuel, in this case, Santa's pants, reacts
with the oxygen to produce carbon
dioxide, water vapor, and even more heat.
In the flames atmospheric oxygen
molecules in the room react to form
hydroxyl radicals that propagate the
reaction. Radicals are molecules with
lonely unpaired electrons looking form a
bond. Here they find that bond with
hydrogen atoms in the fuel because
hydrogens are the lightest element and
their bonds to carbon in the fabric of
the suit are easy to break. This
propagates a chain reaction until
hydrogen atoms and the fuel source are
all used up. But let's say Santa's suit
contains this organohalogen which is
flame-retardant. When heated TDC PP
gives off hydrogen chloride. This
molecule reacts with the hydroxyl
radicals in the flame, donating its
hydrogen and leaving a chlorine radical
behind. Because chlorine is more stable
in radical form than oxygen, these
chlorine radicals do not react as easily,
slowing down the entire combustion
reaction. And that's great news for Santa,
having time to escape unscathed. But
mounting evidence suggests that using
flame retardants
in this way might be hazardous
to our health and our environment.
Many organohalogens are coated onto
plastics and textiles instead of
chemically bound to them and can easily
leach into food and onto household
surfaces. In fact, studies show that
people who live in homes with more goods
and furniture treated with flame
retardants have higher concentrations of
these compounds in their blood. Which in
some people may be linked to health
problems, and we want Saint Nick to live
a long jolly life. These compounds are
thought to be endocrine disruptors and
have been linked to reproductive and
developmental problems as well as
certain kinds of cancer. Many organo-
halogens are very stable, so they
persist in people, pets, soil, wildlife, and
maybe even Father Christmas for many
years. The debate on what to do about it
has been, well, heated. For decades,
environmental and consumer safety
advocates have been campaigning to limit
the use of organohalogens, but
manufacturers contend that removing them
would mean more lives lost to house
fires. The process in curbing fire
retardant exposure continues today. In
2013, manufacturers agreed to phase out
the production of DecaBDE, a type of
brominated flame retardant after the
EPA alleged the compounds impact human
brain function, pollutes the environment,
and may cause cancer. Now the US Consumer
Product Safety Commission is considering
a proposal to require manufacturers to
limit the use of any organohalogen
in household goods. Only time will tell
if this class of compounds winds up on
the naughty list.
Green chemists are investigating safer
flame retardants that either don't build
up in the body and environment or don't
leach out from their intended products
in the first place.
But for now, maybe we spare Santa a
flame-retardant suit and just enjoy that
amazing 24/7 Yule Log Channel. Ahh, safe
fire. Thanks for watching. Before we head
off to our holiday break, help us get
this one thing off our list:
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