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 Hot Stuff
In the never-ending quest for material impervious to fire, a small Utah firm aims to turn up the heat on mighty DuPont
By Daniel Lyons
Forbes Magazine 12/22/03
Tyler Thatcher holds a penny on a piece of soft black cloth in his open palm, and with a chefs 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.
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, fire-fighters' 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: promoting high-profile customers who have already sought out the product. Larry Dixon, a two-time national champion drag racer, won't climb into his 8,000-horsepower 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, a-PAN fibers 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. "I thought if 1 don't take this fabric back to the racers, then shame on me," recalls Chapman, owner of Chapman Racing Heads in Woods 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, fire-fighting, 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.
CarbonX's problem may be that it provides more fireproofing than anyone needs. The air we breathe is 21% oxygen. and CarbonX scores a 53%, meaning it won't burn even in an oxygen-rich environment. That compares with Nomex's 28%; DuPont counters that anything with a score above 21% will not support combustion in normal air and is therefore adequate for most applications.
CarbonX is expensive. Chapman gets $19 per yard for the 7-ounce CarbonX fabric. which Thatcher says is about 20% more than DuPont's Nomex. (DuPont won't discuss its pricing.) Steelmaker Nucor is happy to pay the premium to protect its workers. Oakley, the sunglasses company, is using CarbonX in a line of boots for racecar drivers that it hopes will expand into products for mainstream consumers.
PGI, a Green Lake, Wisconsin safety-clothing maker, won a steel mill account for CarbonX after a sizzling demo that involved pouring 2,800-degree molten steel over a CarbonX balaclava, which survived unharmed. "It's an incredible fabric," says Ronald Dott, PGI's national sales manager.
Thatcher says sales in 2003 will be $1.5 million, up from $500,000 last year.
Thatcher finishes his penny trick by flipping the melted penny from the unharmed CarbonX onto a swatch of Nomex - which shrinks, chars and begins to smoke. Is DuPont worried? Thatcher claims a scan of his Web site's traffic shows a significant amount of hits are coming from inside DuPont.
Quest Against Fire
There is more than one way to make a barbecue mitt.
ASBESTOS. A naturally occurring fibrous mineral resistant to heat and flame. Ancient Greeks used it to make wicks that burned without being consumed. Widely used as insulation and fire-protection in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now deemed a carcinogen. it is banned for most uses in the U.S. but still sold as a binder in concrete.
NOMEX. Introduced in 1963 by DuPont, made out of fibers called aramids that don't burn easily. Probably the most widely used fire-resistant material in the world. Found in clothing, insulation for electrical transformers, filters and theater scenery.
PSI GOLD. Introduced in 1986 by German chemical firm Celanese, PBI Gold (polybenzimidazole) is used by the majority of U.S. fire departments. Celanese engineers, originally working under an assignment from NASA, created a polymer that cannot be ignited. PBI Gold is more expensive than Nomex and so is not as popular. Now
being pursued as a fuel-cell membrane.
FLAME-RESISTANT COTTON. Some chemicals, when exposed to heat, produce gases that displace the oxygen needed to fuel a fire. These chemicals can be added to cotton fabric for fire resistance. Another method, employed by Chicago-based Westex, maker of Indura, is to use chemicals that cause fabric to char when exposed to flames. Charring robs fire of fuel it needs to burn. Flame resistant cotton costs less than other fire-resistant products. But as you wash these garments, the flame-resistant chemicals start to wear off.
SILICA. Silica, a.k.a. silicon dioxide is the main ingredient in sand and is a great flame-proofer. Auburn Manufacturing in Mechanic Falls, Maine sells a fabric made of 96% silica that withstands temperatures up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Auburn just got a big order from the defense department for fabric to make drop cloths used around welders making repairs to U.S. Navy ships.
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