Seawater Capsule-Based Flexible Fire Blanket for Efficient Fire Suppression in Semi-Enclosed Environments

With the rising frequency of small-scale fires in complex, semienclosed environments such as kitchens and vehicles, traditional fire blankets─though effective at physically isolating flames─suffer from low extinguishing efficiency and poor environmental adaptability. To overcome these limitations, we developed a flexible fire blanket integrated with seawater-based capsules to enhance suppression performance in confined spaces. Using precise microfluidic technology, seawater capsules with uniform size, robust shells, and controlled composition were fabricated and homogeneously dispersed in the blanket matrix. Seawater was selected as the extinguishing medium for its abundance, strong cooling capacity, environmental safety, and low cost, avoiding toxic residues common with chemical agents. The optimized capsule shell exhibited excellent thermal responsiveness and structural integrity, rupturing within 2 ms under heat and rapidly releasing the extinguishing medium. This enabled efficient flame suppression through dual mechanisms of localized evaporative cooling and steam-induced oxygen displacement. The resulting composite blanket demonstrated superior response speed, extinguishing efficiency, and environmental adaptability, offering a sustainable solution for fire control in semienclosed scenarios and strong potential for practical engineering applications.