Effects of moisture and particle size distribution on flame propagation of L-lysine sulfate powder

Abstract

Lysine is an essential amino acid for human body, and lysine sulfates are at risk of fire and explosion during the production and processing. However, there is no public report on the lysine sulfate powder explosion hazard research. In this paper, the effects of moisture, mass concentration and particle size on the flame propagation behaviors of L-lysine sulfate powder were studied in a vertical pipe. The results showed that the flame propagation could be divided into 3 stages: free propagation, acceleration and attenuation, in which the acceleration was owed to the positive feedback of combustion reaction, gas expansion and turbulence. Moisture content could promote the flame propagation of L-lysine sulfate powder to a certain extent, but it had a strong inhibitory effect on the explosion when the moisture content was too large. The flame propagation velocity increased with the decrease of the average particle size of powder,.With the increase of the particle concentration, the flame propagation velocity of powder explosion increased first and then decreased, that was, there was an optimal concentration of powder explosion, and the powder was more sensitive to the change of concentration in the range of low concentration.