FirePASS® History and Development
FirePASS® Corporation was established in 2001 in New York U.S.A. after the Phenomenon of ignition suppression in breathable hypoxic atmosphere was discovered and patented.
Sudden Discovery
Many hundreds of years scientists and engineers around the world tried to find a way to make us safe from fire. Different technologies were introduced to fight fire with water, sand, foams, water mist, inert gases, etc. The problem is that they are all reactive and deployed after a fire actually starts providing at least some damaging results.
The amazing property of breathable hypoxic (oxygen-reduced) air to suppress ignition and fire was discovered in 1998 in the U.S.A. by Russian scientist and engineer Igor (Gary) Kotliar. He made this breakthrough during his experiments with the Hypoxic Room System, which he invented in 1993 for simulating altitude in athletic training. In 1995 Igor Kotliar formed Hypoxico Inc. in New York and started marketing
the Hypoxic (Altitude) Room and Hypoxic Tents to cyclists, runners and fitness clubs around the world. This revolutionary concept allowed many famous athletes (see www.hypoxico.eu ) to achieve incredible results.
Leads to Revolutionary Concept
Since then simulated “altitude training” became a standard in training of top level athletes and is used in wellness and medical field as well as for acclimatization at home. A hypoxic environment for both, athletic training or fire prevention is established by ventilating a room with hypoxic air. Hypoxic air can be produced by filtering out a part of oxygen from ambient atmospheric air that contains 20.9% of oxygen. For instance, 15% oxygen content corresponds in partial pressure of oxygen to an altitude of 2700 m. By experimenting in this environment, Igor Kotliar discovered a Phenomenon of Ignition Suppression in Breathable Hypoxic Atmosphere and introduced a new scientific term Ignition Threshold. It was discovered that most common materials can not be ignited at 15% of oxygen. However, in order to extinguish a fire the oxygen % must be reduced to at least below 12% but some materials may require the oxygen % to be reduced to 8%. Even though the scientific community did not initially accept this, this discovery allowed a birth of a totally new industry in the fire protection field.
WORLDWIDE PATENTED
FirePASS® Technology is protected by patents worldwide:
United States Patents No: 06,314,754; 06,334,315; 06,401,487; 06,418,752; 06,502,421; 06,557,374; 06,560,991; 07,207,392; RE040065.
FirePASS® is also protected by patents in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, India, Israel, Italy, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Russian Federation, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, etc. More patents pending.
Since 1995, together with Hypoxico Inc., FirePASS Group has accumulated extensive knowledge and experience in producing hypoxic environments for fire prevention and human training. Our systems being installed and perfectly operate worldwide and we guarantee absolute human safety. Unfortunately (as it happens with many good ideas), there are some companies that, instead of legally licensing, simply steal or try to mimic our technology using dangerous Nitrogen Dilution concept instead of Hypoxic Ventilation.
FirePASS® Group and its licensees are the only legal manufacturers of the systems providing breathable fire-prevention environments – be aware of copycats!