Effects of carbon dioxide addition to fuel on soot evolution in ethylene and propane diffusion flames

Abstract

The influence of carbon dioxide addition to the fuel on soot evolution in ethylene and propane diffusion flames was studied by optical diagnostics. The mole fraction of CO2 addition ranged from 0 to 0.5, while the flow rate of the fuel gas was kept constant for these two sets of flames. Spatial distributions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), temperature, as well as volume fraction, primary particle size and number density of soot were observed by the methods of laser-induced fluorescence (LIF), ratio pyrometry and laser-induced incandescence (LII), respectively. It was found that the flame height decreased for ethylene flames while it was nearly constant for propane flames with increasing addition of CO2. The measurements showed a temperature reduction in the lower part but an increase in the upper part in the ethylene-based flames. By contrast, a slight temperature decrease was observed in overall propane-based flames with the addition of CO2. Similar suppression effects were observed in the total soot/PAHs loading, percentage of carbon conversion to soot, and the total number of primary soot particles regardless of the fuel type. Comparison between the total loading of soot and PAHs indicated that addition of CO2 inhibited the conversion of PAHs to soot. The results also showed that the addition of CO2 in the fuel had a small effect on the specific growth rate of soot regardless of the fuel type. Relative changes of particle surface area could reasonably well explain the shift in the peak volume fraction from the wings to the centerline with the addition of CO2 to the ethylene flames.