AeKyung Chemical Becomes First in Korea to Pass Quality Testing
Urethane Panel Raw Material ‘Meets Strengthened Fire Safety Standards’
AeKyung Chemical (CEO Pyo Kyung-won) has successfully developed a urethane material that meets the safety standards of the strengthened Building Act and related regulations, stirring up the urethane panel market.
AeKyung Chemical recently announced that a urethane panel jointly developed with panel manufacturer SY (co-CEOs Jeon Pyeong-yeol and Hong Seong-bu) has passed the semi-noncombustible testing standards (composite material quality certification test, KS F 8414) that comply with the strengthened regulations. With this, AeKyung Chemical has passed all four types of quality tests required to obtain composite material quality certification.
This achievement carries great significance as the first case in Korea to apply the ‘cyclopentane’ blowing agent. Cyclopentane has a GWP (Global Warming Potential) roughly 85% lower than HCFC-141b, which is used by most companies in Korea, and is recognized as a more environmentally friendly product compared to conventional blowing agents.
While urethane materials offer superior insulation performance compared to noncombustible materials such as glass wool, their relative vulnerability to fire has been pointed out as a problem. In response, the government recently strengthened the ‘Quality Certification and Management Standards for Building Materials, etc.’ to enhance the safety of fire-vulnerable building materials, effectively putting such materials on a path toward being phased out of the insulation material market. Under the amended Building Act, insulation materials must use noncombustible or semi-noncombustible materials that do not burn, and testing must additionally include full-scale mock-up testing along with small-scale tests.
Accordingly, AeKyung Chemical partnered with SY to begin developing a urethane panel applying semi-noncombustible materials, and after roughly three years of research, succeeded in developing a product that meets the safety standards. Going forward, urethane panels with excellent insulation performance can now be used without concerns about fire.
▲ A scene from the KS F 8414 (fire safety performance test for building external cladding systems) testing of AeKyung Chemical’s semi-noncombustible insulation material.