Combined Diffusion Coefficients in CO2 Thermal Plasmas Contaminated with Cu, Fe or Al

Abstract

Our work aims at the computation of combined diffusion coefficients in CO2–metal (Cu, Fe, Al) mixtures at a temperature interval of 2000–30,000 K at 0.1 MPa and aims at the investigation of the impact of the concentration and nature of metal vapor (Cu, Fe, Al) on diffusion phenomena. The combined diffusion coefficients have four components, more specifically, combined ordinary diffusion coefficient, combined electric field diffusion coefficient, combined temperature diffusion coefficient and combined pressure diffusion coefficient due to the gradients of the species densities, applied electrical field temperature and pressure. The results indicate that, for Cu and Fe, the combined diffusion coefficients are quite identical under the condition of same metal concentrations (1 and 10% mass concentration). Compared with Cu and Fe under the same metal concentrations (1 and 10%), Al results in a larger enhancement of combined electric field and ordinary diffusion coefficients while smaller enhancement of combined temperature diffusion coefficients. All the combined diffusion coefficients exhibit an upward trend with metal concentrations except for combined electric field, temperature and pressure diffusion coefficients. These three mentioned coefficients are attenuated by the metal vapor above the certain concentration such as, in the case of combined temperature diffusion coefficients, 70% Cu, 70% Fe and 50% Al for CO2–Cu, CO2–Fe and CO2–Al mixtures respectively. Namely, compared with Cu and Fe, less quantity of Al is required to achieve the maximum of combined diffusion coefficients. Maximum peaks for the combined coefficients are shifted to the higher temperature with increasing metal concentrations.