The liquid vaporised and extinguished the flames by inhibiting the chemical chain reaction of the combustion process (it was an early 20th-century presupposition that the fire suppression ability of carbon tetrachloride relied on oxygen removal.) In 1911, they patented a small, portable extinguisher that used the chemical. In 1910, The Pyrene Manufacturing Company of Delaware filed a patent to use carbon tetrachloride to extinguish fires. where a small range of hand pump extinguishers were sold for domestic and transportation use. Phillips, took out UK patents for extinguisher and founded the Pyrene Company Limited in 1914.
In 1907, a Scottish engineer found himself knocking on financiers doors seeking development funding for a portable, hand-held fire extinguisher.įailing to find a sympathetic ear he was forced to take his invention to the US where he established what was to later become known as the Pyrene Company of Delaware in 1909.įive years later a American businessman, Wallace B.
