Molecular beam/mass spectrometric and modeling studies of CF{sub 3}Br inhibited flames
- Army Research Lab., Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD (United States); and others
The halogenated compound CF{sub 3}Br, halon 1301, has been widely used as a flame inhibitor and fire suppression agent. It has been implemented into many fire protection systems dating back as far as the early 1940`s. Despite the favorable - experimentally observed flame suppression properties, the detailed chemistry and physics effecting the inhibition in flames by this and similar compounds is not well understood. That there has been very limited research on the chemistry of brominated fire retardants in the past decade is probably due to their known effectiveness and ease of availability. The recent discovery that these bromides promote degradation of the earth`s ozone layer and their subsequent use restrictions has, however, led to a resurgence of research on these and other fluorinated hydrocarbons. The purpose of the current studies is to more fully understand the fundamental physical and chemical processes of flame inhibition and to help guide the search for safe and effective replacements. This paper reports new experimental data and results on modeling this data and data from the literature on flames inhibited by CF{sub 3}Br. The new experiments were performed on a 20 torr, stoichiometric, premixed, laminar CH{sub 4}/O{sub 2}/Ar flame with and without 1.6% CF{sub 3}Br. Profiles of the detailed structure of the flame were obtained by using MB/MS and thermocouple techniques to measure species concentration and temperature, respectively. These are compared with predicted profiles generated by a premixed laminar flame code using a large detailed mechanism. In addition to modeling of the low pressure detailed structure studies, the model has been used to compute flame speeds for atmospheric pressure conditions at several stoichiometries ranging from rich to lean and for a wide range of CF{sub 3}Br concentrations.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 110841
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/CP--433-7748; CONF-9410343--; ON: DE95004052
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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