US-based component supplier TRW has introduced a new type of inflator for airbags which it says is the cleanest available anywhere. The new product, called HGI (Heated Gas Inflator) will be produced at a new TRW factory opened in June at Peterlee, in northern England. The HGI technology involves substituting gas for the pellet of sodium azide conventionally used to power the explosion of an airbag. The problems posed by sodium azide include the difficulty of disposing of it and the fact that staff in bodyshops were put at risk during repair of vehicles after accidents. TRW has developed an inflator which uses a mix of lean hydrogen and air, stored at 175-310 bar, as a propellant — the residue of which is merely water vapour.
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