On the Use of a Well Stirred Reactor to Study Soot Inception.
On the Use of a Well Stirred Reactor to Study Soot
Inception.
(296 K)
Manzello, S. L.; Mulholland, G. W.; Donovan, M.; Tsang,
W.; Park, K.; Zachariah, M. R.; Stouffer, S. D.
Poster Session II and Reception;
Combustion Institute/Western States, Central States and
Eastern States. Fourth (4th) Joint Meeting of the U.S.
Sections. Hosted by The Eastern States Section of the
Combustion Institute and Drexel University. Poster
Session II and Reception. March 20-23, 2005,
Philadelphia, PA, 1-6 pp, 2005.
Keywords:
combustion; soot; nuclear reactors; polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons; size distribution; exhasut gases; probes
Abstract:
A well stirred reactor (WSR) followed by a plug flow
reactor (PFR) is being used to study polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbon (PAH) growth and soot inception. Soot size
distributions were measured using a dilution probe
followed by a nano-differential mobility analyzer
(Nano-DMA). A rapid insertion probe was fabricated to
thermophoretically collect particles from the reactor
for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis.
Results are presented on the: (1) effect on the
equivalence ratio of the soot size distributions
obtained from the Nano-DMA for fixed dilution ratio (2)
effect of dilution ratio on the soot size distributions
obtained from the Nano-DMA for fixed equivalence ratio,
and (3) comparison of soot size distributions obtained
from the rapid insertion/TEM analysis and the Nano-DMA.
The particle sizing results from the Nano-DMA and the
rapid insertion/TEM analyses suggested that condensation
of low vapor pressure species was occurring during the
dilution process. Our size distribution measurements
demonstrate that the mixing conditions in the flame zone
affect whether or not a nucleation mode was detected in
the size distribution.
Building and Fire Research Laboratory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, MD 20899