Cosmetic Coating to Protect Unclothed Skin from Thermal (Burn) Injury

Burns are generally prevented by clothing and materials that offer a considerable degree of thermal protection from high heat fluxes. However, because of ergonomic considerations select areas of the body including the face and the hands may not be covered during operations. What is desired is a comfortable hypoallergenic heat protective skin paint that will reduce severity of the thermal insult to less than 10 kW/m2. TRI/Austin calorimetry results indicate a doubling of time to second degree burns at a heat flux of 40kW/m2 with our new non-irritating dermal coatings. Lives can be saved and burn damage lessened with these new dermal thermal barrier coatings. A systematic product development and testing, coupled with effective and timely commercial transition will result in a revolutionary non-irritating skin coating for warfighters. Experimental design techniques will be utilized for systematically evaluating formulation and processing components resulting in a low cost, non-irritating, camouflage paint compatible, cosmetic coating protective against thermal threats. The effectiveness of our technical approach will be demonstrated in the course of Phase II laboratory based testing including reducing the effective heat flux, skin irritation testing, compatibility with the extant camouflage paint, thermal analysis, and formulation performance when tested using MIL-DTL-32000 procedures.