What is a Respirator?

The respirator is a self-contained open air respirator, which is widely used in fire protection, chemical industry, shipbuilding, petroleum, smelting, warehouse, laboratory, mine and other departments. It is used by firefighters or emergency rescue workers in dense smoke, poisonous gas, steam or lack of Oxygen can be used safely and effectively to extinguish fires, rescue, and rescue in various environments. This series of products is equipped with a full-face, bright, air-tight full-face mask. The air supply device is equipped with a new type of air supply valve that is small in size, light in weight, and stable in performance. Gas cylinders; pressure reducing valve devices are equipped with residual gas alarms, which can send an audible signal to the wearer within the specified gas cylinder pressure range to remind users to evacuate the scene in time.

Respirator

The respirator is a self-contained open air respirator, which is widely used in fire protection, chemical industry, shipbuilding, petroleum, smelting, warehouse, laboratory, mine and other departments. It is used by firefighters or emergency rescue workers in dense smoke, poisonous gas, steam or lack of Oxygen can be used safely and effectively to extinguish fires, rescue, and rescue in various environments. This series of products is equipped with a full-face, bright, air-tight full-face mask. The air supply device is equipped with a new type of air supply valve that is small in size, light in weight, and stable in performance. Gas cylinders; pressure reducing valve devices are equipped with residual gas alarms, which can send an audible signal to the wearer within the specified gas cylinder pressure range to remind users to evacuate the scene in time.

Chinese name

Respirator

Foreign name

Respirator

Alias

Respirator

Development history of respirators

Chronicle of China's Early Development

China began to design and manufacture oxygen gas masks by itself in the 1950s. At that time, in order to cooperate with the atomic bomb test, the General Staff of the PLA sent the task of developing a gas mask to the Beijing Chemical Defense Academy. The prototype provided at that time was a gas mask made by the former Soviet Union. Beijing Institute of Chemical Defense developed the first generation of oxygen gas masks in China in 1959, which provided effective guarantee for China's nuclear tests. Later, the first military gas mask production plant in Shanxi Province, Shanxi Xinhua Chemical Factory, was established in Taiyuan, Shanxi, which mainly produced various types of military gas mask canisters.

At the end of the 1970s, China was out of the catastrophe of the "Cultural Revolution" and the national economy began to fully recover. At that time, China's foreign reform and development policy was implemented, and international exchanges were increasing. China's fire protection, coal mine, and petrochemical systems have introduced many relatively advanced air respirators. The air respirator at that time was a negative pressure air respirator (the pressure in the mask was lower than the ambient pressure). The gas cylinder is a steel gas cylinder with a volumetric ratio of 1.1-1.2 and an inflation pressure of 20 MPa.

In 1982, the Shanghai Fire Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security and the Shanghai Diving Equipment Factory cooperated to successfully develop China's first-generation HZK-7 fire-fighting air respirator based on Japanese and British products.

At that time, the HZK-7 fire-fighting air respirator was a negative-pressure air respirator.

In 1988, the Shanghai Fire Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security cooperated with the Fushun Coal Mine Safety Instrument Factory to develop the first-generation positive-pressure air respirator in China based on DRAGER's PA-80 positive-pressure air respirator. At that time, product sales ranked first in the country.

In 1989, the positive-pressure air respirator developed by Shanghai Diving Equipment Factory was also successfully identified in Shanghai.

The respirator changed from negative pressure to positive pressure, which is a major breakthrough in technology. Since then, positive pressure has become the mainstream direction of the development of respirators, because it has a high safety factor and breathes comfortably.

During the development of China's positive-pressure air breathing apparatus, Germany DRAGER company has made great contributions. German DRAGER company technical staff made a very detailed introduction to PA-80 positive pressure air respirator, providing a basis for the development of positive pressure air respirator in China. In addition, Germany DRAGER company also provides us with many long-pipe positive pressure air respirators, gas masks and many other fire breathing protective gear.

At the end of the 1990s, with the extensive use of new technologies, new materials and new technologies, carbon fiber fully wound aluminum alloy inner cylinder composite gas cylinders came into being in China. Its birth reduced the wearing weight of the positive pressure air respirator as a whole by 30%, thereby effectively reducing the amount of work done by firefighters and rescue workers, and ensuring the smooth progress of fire fighting and rescue operations. The Fire Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security issued a notice in time to replace the carbon fiber fully-wound aluminum alloy liner gas cylinder.

New development of respirators

Scientists from various countries are constantly studying the improvement of air respirators. The biggest weakness of air respirators is that the use time is short. Effectively extending the use time is the issue that everyone cares about most. There are several ways to solve this problem:

1. On the premise that the current wearing weight is unchanged, a method of increasing the rated working pressure and volume of the cylinder is used to increase the gas storage capacity of the cylinder. Try to use new materials and new processes to reduce the weight of full-face masks, gas cylinder valves, gas supply valves, pressure reducers, back frames and other components, leaving room for the increase in gas cylinder weight. The maximum rated working pressure of the gas cylinder is 30 MPa. If it is increased to 60 MPa, the gas storage capacity of the gas cylinder will be doubled, and the usage time will be doubled accordingly. When the volume of the gas cylinder is doubled, the gas storage capacity of the gas cylinder will increase Double the time and double the usage time. The organic combination of the two will increase the gas storage volume geometrically.

2. Reduce unnecessary gas consumption. For example: "breathing ambient air" and "breathing cylinder air" can be switched freely, and filter respirators and air respirators can be switched freely.

3. The application of electronic sensing technology on air respirators to form intelligent air respirators. When the outside toxic gas concentration exceeds the limit or the oxygen concentration is lower than 17%, it automatically switches to an air respirator.

Another development direction of air respirators is the improvement of products, including: organic combination of sound and light alarms, communication devices, emergency calls, and light guidance. In a dimly lit environment, the firefighters could quickly find the teammates by seeing the light guidance on the teammate's back frame. Through the communication device, the firefighters can contact the teammates and the command vehicle. Once the firefighters encounter an accident, the emergency call device is automatically turned on to guide the teammates to rescue in time.

In addition to the above development directions, technical staff of various countries studying air respirators are improving and perfecting basic structural components such as air supply valves, gas cylinder valves, pressure reducers, alarms, pressure gauges, and back frames. Strive to be simple, reliable and complete.

Problems that operators need to pay attention to during use

According to all the respirators on the market, although there are many brands of respirators and the overall shape is also very different, but in general, we can divide the respirators into the following different types. Respirators are classified according to their functions and can be divided into positive pressure air respirators, oxygen respirator mobile, long tube air respirators, positive pressure oxygen respirators, and positive pressure air respirators. It should be emphasized here that air respirators and oxygen respirators are very different, and the two should not be used in confusion.

The use of respirators is basically the same. No matter what type of respirator we buy, when we get the respirator, we need to do a simple check first to ensure that the respirator we buy It is a regular respirator. We need to check several key parts of the full face mask. This includes the lens of the full face mask, the strap of the full face mask, whether the ring seal of the regular respirator is intact, and finally the situation of the two key valves, which is what we call the breather valve and the suction valve of the breather. The integrity of the two valves directly affects the use of the respirator.