Impact of the soot composition and morphology on its oxidation
Résumé
Improving combustion processes implies a deeper understanding of the main mechanisms involved in soot formation and oxidation. Existing experimental studies on soot oxidation primarily involve ex-situ investigations, which examine heated deposited materials in furnaces [1]. While useful for catalytic process optimization and particulate filter regeneration, these studies lack insights into the physical processes of soot oxidation under flame conditions. Access to oxidation phenomena in flames can be gained by in-situ optical techniques such as laser light extinction or scattering [2]. However, existing studies often cannot separate oxidation from concurrent surface growth processes in sooting flames. The aim of the present study is to address this limitation by injecting previously produced soot particles into a non-sooting flame. This "two-stage burner" setup provides an opportunity to isolate and focus on the oxidation process alone. Even if it is not entirely representative of natural flames, this approach allows for a better understanding of the soot life-cycle and aids in the development of accurate oxidation models for numerical soot formation codes.
This innovative approach will help to gain a better understanding of the soot particles oxidation process by isolating this process from surface growth and by analysing it for various fuels and operating conditions.
To achieve this objective, a canonical flame was developed, in which previously generated soot is injected and oxidised (double stage burner). With this method, the progressive oxidation / fragmentation of the injected particles is observed. The in-situ analysis of the particles is carried out by applying optical techniques based on visible light such as emission [3] and Static Light Scattering (SLS) [4] are applied to characterize the behaviour of soot during oxidation and the evolution of its physical properties such as soot volume fraction, size or fractal dimension.
This work was carried out as part of a project with SAFRAN Group aiming at studying the impact of oxidation on particulate matter from different fuels combustion.