Submerged combustion of premixed hydrocarbon-oxygen flames in liquid nitrogen

In this exploratory work, several premixed flames were operated beneath the surface of liquid nitrogen in hopes that some unusual intermediates would be obtained from the resulting quenching process. This quenching would prevent the further reaction of the intermediates which would lead to the final products that are observed under more ordinary conditions. The reactor consisted of a three-port cylindrical vessel with an observation port. The walls of the reactor were insulated from the ambient atmosphere with fiberglass and styrofoam. The flame was introduced into the reactor through a flame holder port in the center of the bottom of the reactor. Since a cold flame holder would quench a flame, it was equipped with a heater which could be controlled to keep the flame holder near room temperature even though it was submerged in liquid nitrogen. Three premixed flames, CH₄-O₂, C₃H₈-O₂, and C₂H₂-O₂, were studied. The submerged stoichiometric combustion yielded condensed products, which, when mass spectrometrically analyzed at room temperature, consisted of nitrogen oxides, carbon oxides, water and nitric acid. The presence of NO₂, CO₂ and HNO₃ was clear, but the confirmation of NO, N₂O, CO, CH₄ or OCH₂ was somewhat equivocal due to overlapping peaks from several compounds. A 10 to 15 per cent deviation of either fuel or oxidant from stoichiometric mixture did not produce any change in the over-all chemistry that was observed.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Chemical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Chemical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Year dc:date.issued

1974

Author dc:creator

• Le-Si, Ngoc (Mike)

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10919/113478

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/113478