Elsevier

Combustion and Flame

Volume 72, Issue 1, April 1988, Pages 91-109
Combustion and Flame

Formation of small aromatic molecules in a sooting ethylene flame

https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-2180(88)90099-5Get rights and content

Abstract

The chemical route to the formation of soot and PAH is poorly understood, in part because rate constants for reactions of aromatic species at flame temperatures are largely unknown. In this work we used a quartz sampling probe to measure the concentration profiles of the single-ring aromatics benzene, phenylacetylene, and styrene in heavily sooting premixed ethylene flames. A detailed chemical kinetics model was then constructed for the purpose of explaining the flame chemistry. The model, which uses estimated rate constants for many of the reactions involving aromatic species, gives good predictions for benzene and better than order-of-magnitude predictions for styrene and phenylacetylene. A sensitivity analysis has isolated a particular chemical reaction which controls their rate of formation, and it shows that even large errors in the other aromatic rate constants have relatively little effect on the predictions. The value for this rate constant is consistent with measurements made in a low pressure flame and in shock tubes.

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