Troy Hurtubise's fire paste

Ever seen this guy on TV? He's this crazy Canadian inventor who made this incredible fire paste.

There is no doubt that it can match the insulating capabilities of NASA-grade ceramics. If you watched him on TV with his fire paste, you will know.

For about a year already, I've been dying to know what it is made out of.

Clues:
Troy: "If I told you what the ingredients were, you'd laugh" (suggesting household, easily obtainable materials)
Wikipedia: Tests revealed that the substance contained bromine and lithium.
Wikipedia: He revealed one of the ingredients as Diet Coke.
Troy: "I take a look at what's going on in Harvard, (and several other Ivy-league institutions), and I apply them over here" (not verbatim)
He puts it in the microwave to prepare.

As for the lithium, this might suggest the presence of clay, since some clay (but not all) contains lithium. The Diet Coke can serve no other purpose than to increase the porosity of the substance.

Any further leads? Let's crack this guy's secret open.

 

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lithium bromide? What tests were done to check its make up?

As for insulating capabilities, theres plenty of wonderful insulating materials out there, the problem is that some of them burn, and some of them dont, and others change phase, or are too heavy, or adsorb too much gas or moisture onto them.

I'll look up wikipedia tommorrow at work.

Oh, as for clays, fireclays, they are usually oxides of many complex silicon based stuff. Lithium is a decidedly minor constituent in them, and to my mind has little effect.

 

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For bentonites, illites, and kaolinites yes lithium is relatively rare but there are many clay minerals such as petalite that contain lithium.

What else could the lithium substance be?

 

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Troy Hurtubise? The PROJECT GRIZZLY guy? http://www.projectgrizzly.net/

Give me a break.

 

His other projects are BS.

I'm just interested in the fire paste.

 

I dont know about this. Fire retardant, resistant, hheat shield?? Sounds very useful though. Most of all, is it cheap?

 

It's supposed to be as good as the space shuttle tiles in terms of acting as a heat shield.
It should be pretty cheap. I'm assuming household materials.

 

He probably puts it in the microwave to evaporate all the water out of the Diet Coke and to force the evolution of CO2 inside the strange substance. Clay?

 

He would be at least the second or third inventor to succeed at pretty much the same thing. The first two were paints. The secret is a lot like those things kids used to do with wire, borax, and an alcohol flame as chemistry experiments. I dont' know how he got it to be biodegradable, but the basic principle is that the paint or paste expands when heated and forms a rigid ceramic-like substance that is extremely resistant to heat, heat penetration, and since it has low thermal mass, it cools quickly. If the surface heats up quickly, that also means that it radiates that heat quickly at the fourth power of the temperature. The numbers pile up quickly.

There is a paint that has been out for almost ten years that does much the same thing. I suppose that the formula is there waiting to be rediscovered a few times. Here is a link to a manufacturer who uses the first technique that I thought of, using ceramic (I actually thought glass, almost the same thing) microspheres. Small spheres of glass would tend to dissipate some of the heat by re-radiating it quickly.

What Hurtubise is doing is not all that new.

 

i don't know about this

i seen video of a shuttle tile heated with a torch untill it was white hot
within a few minutes you could pick it up by the corners while the inside was still white

 

Very interesting, Metakron. Firepaste could indeed be paint insulator.

Leopold: That's something like the fire paste; extremely low conductivity. But I think the difference with the ceramic is that it doesn't allow most heat through no matter what. Have you seen the TV video with him and his firepaste helmet?

 

no, but if you give me a link i'll watch it

 

Not sure if its on the net, but if I ever come across anything relevant I'll link it.

 

i've been searching the web for material but i haven't found any

 

It was on Discoveries This Week. I forgot the date and time, but it was on the Science Channel around a half year ago - last summer I think.

But the paint insulator substance explains it greatly.

 

jesus christ this man troy is incredible
check this out from wiki:

What is bear behaviour in the den like? What are the signs of agitation, such as jaw popping, the dance on the front feet, slobbering, roaring? It is possible to study these signs at a distance, but Hurtubise wanted to see them from the bear's perspective.

Seven years and $150,000 later, Hurtubise had worked his way up the Mark VI, the suit he believed could protect him from a grizzly. In order to test it, Hurtubise consulted with professors of physics and asked them how to simulate a bear attack. The entire experience was recorded as a National Film Board documentary and called Project Grizzly, with many memorable scenes in which Hurtubise tested the capabilities of the suit using himself as the guinea pig.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise

this next quote is from the same place
and it describes the fire paste

The impetus for firepaste came from a failed fire test with the Ursus Mark VII where the metal exoskeleton heated up, popped the air bags and left Hurtubise with numerous burns. Like Project Grizzly, Hurtubise has tested the material himself, including putting a block of dried firepaste on his head and having a blowtorch apply flame to the topside.

 

The blowtorch thing was on TV. He sat there for an hour and the temperature adjacent to his skull barely topped 100F.

 

that is a true scientist, one that is willing to use himself as a guinea pig.

 

Quite so, I must admit.

 

150,000 dollars on a bear protection suit
man it must be nice to be rich

i wonder if he made any money off it
i don't see myself going out and buying one anytime soon