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Here is the latest American Chemical Society (ACS) Weekly PressPac from the Office of Public Affairs. It has news from ACS' 34 peer-reviewed journals and Chemical & Engineering News. Please credit the individual journal or the American Chemical Society as the source for this information.

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ARTICLE #1 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cousin of the "ice that burns" emerges as greener new way to fight fires
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research

Researchers in Japan are reporting development of a new type of ice that may provide a more efficient, environmentally-friendly method for putting out fires, including out-of control blazes that destroy homes and forests. Their study appears in the current issue of ACS' Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, a bi-weekly journal.

Toshihisa Ueda and colleagues note in the new study that firefighters have used water and carbon dioxide as fire extinguishing agents for decades. That knowledge led the scientists on a quest to see if carbon dioxide hydrates, frozen crystals made of water and carbon dioxide bonded together, may serve as promising fire-suppressing materials. Such icy chunks occur naturally in some parts of the world, including hydrates containing methane. Methane hydrates are a potential new source of natural gas, and are renowned as the "ice that burns." They burst into flame when ignited.

To test their idea, the scientists used a special reactor to produce tiny pellets of carbon dioxide hydrates in the laboratory. They compared the fire-suppressing performance of these hydrates to similar-sized pellets made of normal ice (frozen water) and dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) after sprinkling them onto several small, carefully controlled
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