News

Alubond secures tech to reduce the spread of fire in high rises.

Alubond USA is a global Aluminum Composite Panel (ACP) brand originally developed by American Building Technologies INC (ABTI) located in Rockford, Illinois, USA, and in UAE by Eurocon Building Industries, a group company of Mulk Holdings.

Metal Plast Industries, a fully-owned subsidiary of the diversified multinational business Mulk Holdings International, has developed a fire-rated A1 grade Aluminum Composite Panel (ACP) core and a proprietary bonding system for Alubond A1, which will reduce the spread of fire in high-rise buildings globally.

“The tech ‘breakthrough’ has made Alubond A1 the world’s safest and highest fire-rated composite panels.”

Commenting on the service, founder of Metal Plast Industries and vice-chairman of Mulk Holdings International, Adnan Ul Mulk, said at a press conference: “The Alubond A1 Fire-Retardant ACPs has been designed to reduce and stop fire incidents in civil structures.”

We are proud to be the first manufacturer of A1 core in the Middle East – at our flagship industry at Hamriyah Free Zone. The 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 endeavor to make the world safer with Alubond A1.”

Metal Plast Industries is the first company in the Middle East and Europe to manufacture A1 cores. The company has started offering live demonstrations 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 to develop the Alubond A1 Fire-Retardant Core, meeting international and UAE Fire Code standards.

The team used a combination of hybridization and nanotechnology by adding nano-materials and reinforcement fillers to a matrix of minerals to achieve the desired strength and non-combustible performance of the A1 core.

Alubond A1 has achieved ideal standards including the lowest heat release over high lamination, such as a heat value less than 1.0 MJ/kg and peel strength above 7.0 Newton per square meter.

The Fire-Retardant A1 ACPs are non-combustible and do not produce any smoke in the event of a fire. It, therefore, offers an ideal sustainable alternative to façade materials made of metal or other cladding materials used for ventilated rain screen cladding façades systems.

The FR-A1, which is a more advanced and safe product, is a significant improvement from the existing FR-A2 ACPs in the market. Fire is the biggest cause of accidents in high-rise buildings in the world and in the UAE which has the third highest number of skyscrapers in the world after China, the USA, and Japan. The UAE also hosts 18 of the world’s tallest 100 towers including Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world.

Alubond A1 is particularly suitable for areas where very high fire protection or the use of non-combustible façade materials is required – for example on high-rise buildings or high-rise buildings, fire exit staircases, and the like.