Combustion of a Premixed System in Stagnation Flow—II. Experiments with Carbon Monoxide Oxidation

Abstract

Abstract Described in this paper are experiments with the water-catalyzed gas-phase oxidation of carbon monoxide in premixed stagnation flow at atmospheric pressure. The resulting data, taken over a range of carbon monoxide concentrations in the impinging stream from 15.6 to 20.7 per cent by volume in humid air, are compared with the predictions of a basic mathematical model. It is shown that the data, which include the heat flux to the isothermal stagnation surface and conditions of extinction or blow-off, are quite suitably predicted when the mathematical model incorporates an overall rate expression of either second order or 1,5 order with an activation energy of 20 kcal/gmole. Experiments of this type coupled with theoretical predictions would seem to provide a useful means of studying kinetics of combustion reactions in certain instances and of investigating the basic behavior of combustible mixtures when convection, diffusion and finite-rate chemical kinetics are of interest.