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Abstracts

“Targeted Interfacial Rheology for Next Generation PFAS-Free Firefighting Foam Formulations” by Dr. Cari Dutcher (WP24-4147)

Class B firefighting foams must spread over liquid fuels, suppress vapors, and resist burnback to extinguish fires, but the transition away from PFAS is creating an urgent need for new formulations that can deliver these functions without fluorinated surfactants. This presentation will share results from combining interfacial rheology with catanionic mixtures of soluble anionic and cationic surfactants to create a next-generation fluorine-free foam (F3). Insights will include information about catanionic surfactant dynamics and their effects on foam stability, fuel resistance, and film formation, with the goal of improving PFAS-free fire suppression for DoW applications. Under the right conditions, these mixtures form interfacial assemblies and bilayer vesicles that significantly lower surface tension and critical aggregate concentration while potentially slowing foam coarsening and coalescence and reducing fuel-vapor transport through the foam blanket. 

“Fuel Pick-Up and Emulsification in Fluorine-Free Firefighting Foams: Toward Improved Fire Suppression” by Dr. Bogdan Długogórski (WP23-4575)

Fluorine-free firefighting foams are increasingly replacing PFAS-based AFFF, yet their fire-suppression performance often remains inferior, especially for gasoline fires and in tropical environments. This SERDP project is investigating how fuel pick-up and three-phase foam flammability (TPF) limit F3 effectiveness and how to overcome those constraints. This project combined fire testing, interfacial characterization, rheology, molecular dynamics simulations, and analytical chemistry to determine how foam chemistry influences suppression and burnback resistance. Bench-scale fire experiments compared commercial F3 concentrates on QPL-32725 and benchmarked them against reference AFFF under demanding conditions. Molecular simulations provided atomistic insight into interactions among surfactants, solvents, and water at foam-fuel interfaces. This webinar will present strategies based on emulsification and interfacial engineering to increase allowable fuel content in F3 while maintaining resistance to ignition, helping narrow the performance gap and improve PFAS-free fire suppression.

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Cari Dutcher is the Richard C. Jordan Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and materials science at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, in Minneapolis. Cari leads research on complex fluids and multiphase flows, including emulsions, suspensions, aerosols, and foams, with particular emphasis on surfactant transport, rheology, and flow in dynamic multiphase systems. She has served as principal investigator on several SERDP projects focused on oily bilgewater emulsions and fluorine-free firefighting foam stability and destabilization. She has authored more than 85 peer-reviewed publications and received the NSF CAREER Award, and the AAAR Kenneth T. Whitby Award. Cari earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and a doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Bogdan Długogórski is a distinguished research professor at Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. Bogdan has built an international research program on environmental protection and process safety, with a particular focus on firefighting foams, brominated flame retardants, and lithium-mineral processing. Although primarily an experimentalist, Bogdan works closely with computational chemists and uses atomic-level simulations to support and explain experimental findings. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer, a Chartered Chemist, and a Fellow of the Combustion Institute, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. Bogdan earned a doctor of science in fire safety science and engineering from the University of Newcastle, Australia, and master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.