Flame temperature, fuel structure, and fuel concentration effects on soot formation in inverse diffusion flames

Journal Article · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1992 · Combustion and Flame; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-2180(92)90088-7· OSTI ID:7029952

Sidebotham, G W; Glassman, I ^[1]

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1. Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ (US)

Insights into soot formation processes are gained from chemical sampling and thermocouple probing of co-flowing inverse diffusion flames (IDFs), with the oxidizer in the center. In this paper the transition from near-to slightly sooting flames and the effects of flame temperature, fuel concentration, and fuel structure (using methane, ethene, propene and 1-butene) are investigated. The aromatic content of IDFS scales with the fuel's sooting tendency, and suggests that the formation of the aromatic ring is a controlling step in soot formation. In addition to the relatively well-established reactions involving C4 and C2 species, benzene may form directly from two C3 species for fuels that readily produce C3 species during pyrolysis and/or oxidative pyrolysis. The total concentration of growth species increases almost linearly with fuel concentration, but depends more weakly on flame temperature than would be expected if pure pyrolysis governed the intermediate hydrocarbon behavior.

• OSTI ID: 7029952
• Journal Information: Combustion and Flame; (United States), Vol. 90:3; ISSN 0010-2180
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
FLAMES
SOOT
AROMATICS
BENZENE
BUTENES
CHEMISTRY
CONCENTRATION RATIO
DIFFUSION
FUELS
METHANE
OXIDIZERS
PROPYLENE
PYROLYSIS
SAMPLING
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
THERMOCOUPLES
ALKANES
ALKENES
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
DECOMPOSITION
HYDROCARBONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
THERMOCHEMICAL PROCESSES
400800* - Combustion
Pyrolysis
& High-Temperature Chemistry
400102 - Chemical & Spectral Procedures
440500 - Thermal Instrumentation- (1990-)