By Eamonn Ryan
Any move towards a low‑oxygen working environment naturally raises concerns around health, safety and liability. During the Q&A, delegates at the event pressed Andrew Brink on these points, asking about how long workers can safely operate at 15% oxygen, and what is known about long‑term exposure.
© Cold Link Africa
Brink explained that the systems are designed around existing exposure specifications, which support eight‑hour shifts in such environments, provided appropriate breaks are taken: “The spec allows eight hours, then a break of ten minutes after four hours, and then back for another four hours. So you don’t want to have an office with office workers working nine to five in a low oxygen environment, but forklift operators moving in and out of the warehouse, no problem at all.”
He emphasised the distinction between mobile, intermittent workers (for example, reach‑truck or forklift operators, pickers) and sedentary office staff who should not be permanently based in the low‑oxygen zone. On long‑term health effects, he noted: “I’m unaware of any implications around extended exposure to low oxygen – 15% oxygen is not that low… What we’re talking about is the equivalent partial pressure of oxygen experienced at a plane flying at 4 500m with the door off, so it’s not that dramatic.”
Another important boundary is where the system applies. Hypoxic protection is focused on interior controlled spaces – the rooms, chambers or automated warehouses where high‑value goods or archives are stored. It is not designed to address external fires on building envelopes or roof structures: “You have to make sure that outside the perimeter of the protected space you use traditional fire mitigation or suppression, but it’s inside the space where your high value goods are kept, and you want to prevent the fire from actually starting in that space,” he said.
From a risk and insurance standpoint, this approach has gained considerable traction. Brink cited around 200 operating systems globally, protecting:
- Document warehouses in Ireland
- Museums and archives in Europe, including storage for the iconic painting The Scream in Oslo
- Various warehouses and cold facilities across multiple countries
“The system is liked around the world by insurance companies… The insurers are very happy to see that hypoxic fire prevention systems are available… and they endorse it.”
Looking ahead, Brink argued that fire resilience will be as central to the cold store of the future as temperature and energy efficiency: “The future cold store is not going to be colder, but it’s got to be able to mitigate against fire, and using a low oxygen application, fires don’t start,” said Brink.
For an industry intent on decarbonising the cold chain, hypoxic fire prevention offers a way to protect infrastructure, product and hard‑won efficiency gains in a single, integrated strategy.