Fire Suppressant Chemicals in a lapotp. What to do???

[mike]

A local ham radio operator got hit by the serial arsonist who's
been torching cellphone towers in the Vancouver, WA area.
Good news is that the tower was mostly unharmed. Bad news is that the
house is a total loss...but that's another story.

Fire department put it out with some kind of fire suppressant foam.

The thinkpad laptop was on at the time. Inside it's quite a mess.
localized corrosion all over the place. You can sure tell which pins
were the power pins on each IC. Memory contact pads are seriously
eaten up. I washed it a bunch in simple green and alcohol and managed
to get everything but the keyboard fixed up.

But we've got a LOT more electronic equipment to fix up.
Anybody know what's in this foam stuff and have ideas on best way to
clean it up? It's likely that at least some of the equipment will
be sittig there for weeks until we can get around to it. Should we try
to hose it off if it's gonna be sitting for a while?

I called several local fire departments. I got the serious runaround.
Doesn't sound like they don't know what's in it. Sounds more like they
don't want to tell me what's in it.

Google got me lots of hits on effects on furry creatures, but nothing
related to cleaning up electronic equipment.

I did find one MSDS that mentions:

Composition
Substance CAS No EINECS No Risk Phrase
Ammonium polyphosphate 68333-79-9 269-789-9 none 100
(polyphosphoric acid, ammonium salt)

That can't be good...

Suggestions for treatment?

Anybody ever tried to disassemble a thinkpad 600E keyboard? Looks like
it's glued together???
Thinkpad keyboard for sale?

Thanks, mike
--
Return address is VALID.
Wanted, 12.1" LCD for Gateway Solo 5300. Samsung LT121SU-121
Bunch of stuff For Sale and Wanted at the link below.
Compaq Aero floppy,ram,battery.
MINT HP-41CV, 2-METER AMPS, 200CH SCANNER
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Monitor/4710/

 

[Eric Snyder]

If it is what I'm thinking, it's AFFF ( Aqueous Fire Fighting Foam )
and is made from animal blood. It is highly corrosive and unless the
equipment is immediately flushed with large quantities of fresh water,
the equipment is destroyed. You need to dissasemble the equipment
right away, remove any batteries, and immerse the equipment in large
quantities of fresh water, distilled water is prefered because there
are no additives or chemicals. If you can find it using a Google
search, the US Navy's Corrosion Control Manual is an excellent
reference.

Eric N7DLV

 

[ghislain ruy]

It was Keradol which was made from organic stuff, and it was not blood
but nails, hoes, etc, all containing keratin.
AFFF is made from tensio active fluorosomething. Some of them are
considered as environment unfriendly and that's probably the reason why
the local firefighters wouldn't give you the composition unless they
simply ignore it.
GR

Eric Snyder a écrit :

 

[Ross Herbert]

Can't help in answering the question about what the foam does to
electronics but the foam is almost certainly Aqueous Film Forming Foam
(AFFF), You can read the various msds on AFFF here
http://www.wormald.com.au/Hot_Info/msds

 

[Eric Snyder]

Hmmmm, interesting. When I went to Fire Fighting school in the US
Navy, I was told that the main component of AFFF was bovine (cows)
blood. But that was almost 30 years ago. Perhaps the formulation has
changed since then.

Eric N7DLV

 

[Stan]

[email protected] (Eric Snyder) wrote:

}Hmmmm, interesting. When I went to Fire Fighting school in the US
}Navy, I was told that the main component of AFFF was bovine (cows)
}blood.

Really! Should we be watching for fire-fighters developing Mad Cow
disease in the future?

Stan.

 

[ghislain ruy]

I don't know about mad cow disease (!!) but the
"http://www.wormald.com.au/Hot_Info/msds" has still regular protein
products most probably keratin based ones.
73 F1HDD


Stan a écrit :