Fire alarm wallpaper detects, resists, and warns of house fires

Researchers have designed a “fire alarm wallpaper” made of environmentally friendly, nonflammable materials—including some of the materials found in bone, teeth, and hormones—that can detect a fire, prevent the fire from spreading, and give off an alarm when a fire occurs.

When exposed to heat, the wallpaper is transformed from an electrically insulating state into an electrically conductive one, causing it to automatically trigger an alarm that generates loud sounds and warning lights. The new wallpaper is based on hydroxyapatite, which is the primary inorganic component of bone and teeth.

Although hydroxyapatite is typically brittle and inflexible, in previous work the researchers found that forming ultralong nanowires made of hydroxyapatite gives the material a high flexibility suitable for making wallpaper. In order to make the nonflammable wallpaper a “smart material” capable of automatically sounding an alarm in response to a fire, the researchers incorporated an ink-based thermosensitive sensor onto the wallpaper.

Read more at Phys.org

Image Credit: Shanghai Institute of Ceramics

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