Alubond secures breakthrough by developing A1 fire rated Aluminium Core

Dubai - The Fire-Retardant A1 Aluminium Composite Panels are fully non-combustible and do not produce any smoke in the event of fire, offering an ideal sustainable alternative to façade cladding materials

Metal Plast Industries has successfully developed Fire Rated A1 grade Aluminium Composite Panel (ACP) core and a proprietary bonding system exclusively for Alubond A1, which will reduce the spread of fire in high-rise buildings globally.

This is considered to be a game-changer in the fire rating standards of exterior facades and makes Alubond A1 the world’s safest and highest fire rated composite panels. This is another feather to the world’s largest ACP manufacturer.

“I am pleased to announce that we have started manufacturing Alubond A1 Fire-Retardant ACPs that will reduce and stop fire incident in civil structures and save properties and lives across the world,” Adnan Ul Mulk, founder of Metal Plast Industries, said at a press conference. “We are proud to be the first manufacturer of A1 core in the Middle East – at our flagship industry at Hamriyah Free Zone. The game-changing product has been developed by our own Research and Development team and will soon be exported to other markets in the world and it shall be our endeavour to make the world safer with Alubond A1.”

Metal Plast Industries is the first company in the Middle East and Europe to be manufacturing A1 cores. The company has started offering live demonstration of their A1 core manufacturing capability to global experts and buyers in their expansive facility located in Hamriyah Free Zone in Sharjah, UAE, where the new A1 core was tested to achieve below 1 MJ/Kg heat release – an industry benchmark.

Metal Plast Industries’ dedicated Research and Development team, led by Rajiv Ranjan Jha, worked tirelessly to develop the game-changing Alubond A1 Fire-Retardant Core meeting international and UAE Fire Code standards. The team used a combination of hybridisation and Nano technology by adding nanomaterials and reinforcement fillers to a matrix of minerals to achieve the desired strength and non-combustible performance of the A1 core.

Some of the currently popular construction materials with an A1 grade used in exterior facades are natural stone and solid metal. A composite panel of 4mm with two layers of aluminium skin bonded to an inner core of minerals to achieve A1 standards has always been a dream of the industry.

Alubond A1 has achieved better standards including lowest heat release over high lamination, such as heat value less than 1.0 MJ/kg and peel strength above 7.0 Newton per square metres. In many ways, Alubond A1 is ahead of the curve among all fire-retardant aluminium products. Alubond is the world’s largest ACP and MCM Brand with over twenty-five million square meters of manufacturing and processing capacity with manufacturing facilities in Europe, UAE, Turkey, Oman and India. The newest addition – the A1 core – is a further proof of excellence and innovation.

Rajiv Ranjan Jha, the man behind the development of this technology, stated: “After 10 years of successful implementation of FR B1 granules and A2 core, our R&D team developed the world’s highest fire rated A1 core for cladding. Our R&D team is now in the process of adding more patented technologies such as light weighted fireproof cladding, conductive nano core for cladding and nano ceramic dust free cladding.”

business@khaleejtimes.com