New Impregnation Foam: Environment and Health in Focus

Reading time: ca. 3 min. | An article from Dominik Haas | TUNAP Blog

Autumn has arrived and winter won't be long in coming either. Anyone who has to leave the house these days will also feel it in the increasingly cooler and wetter weather.

We cannot do anything directly against the cold and wet weather, but we can protect ourselves with the appropriate clothing and support this weather protection function. With the newly developed impregnation foam, TUNAP provides the ideal solution for this.

There are several impregnation sprays on the market, and we at TUNAP have been offering our customers such sprays for many years.

So what's the advantage of developing another foam? With this innovation, TUNAP clearly focused on health.

There is a good reason why impregnation sprays should only be used in open and well-ventilated rooms. The impregnating effect does not only extend to clothing, shoes or the awning. If used incorrectly, inhalation of the sprays can also lead to health risks.

Particles with a size of less than 10 μm are potentially respirable: They can get into the alveoli, where their impregnating effect is lost. This is less recommended for anyone who likes to breathe freely.

The TUNAP impregnation sprays already contain less than 3% of particles that are smaller than 10 μm in order to minimize health risks. With the new impregnation foam, however, the number of these particles could be drastically reduced again.

This can be proven by measuring the particle size distribution: In Figure 1 we see a conventional impregnation spray. It can be clearly seen that deflections occur during the measurement in the range below the stated particle size of 10 μm.

In comparison to the conventional products, the measurement of the particle distribution of the TUNAP impregnation foam (in Figure 2), which does not show any relevant measured values below the critical mark of 10 μm.

Our new impregnation foam is also offered free of harmful fluorocarbon compounds. These are compounds that do not occur in nature, but get into the atmosphere through spraying - and ultimately accumulate in the environment, in living beings and also in humans and can hardly or not be broken down.

Long-chain fluorocarbon compounds such as PFOA and PFOS have already been banned and classified as substances of very high concern because they are suspected of impairing reproduction, influencing hormonal balance and promoting cancer.

With the new impregnation foam, too, it was our aim to deliver the best quality and at the same time meet the highest standards in terms of health and environmental compatibility.