Soot particle size distributions in a well-stirred reactor/plug flow reactor

A well-stirred reactor (WSR) followed by a plug flow reactor (PFR) is being used to study polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) growth and soot inception. Soot size distributions were measured using a dilution probe followed by a nano-differential mobility analyzer (Nano-DMA). A rapid insertion probe was fabricated to thermophoretically collect particles from the reactor for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) imaging. Results are presented on the effect of equivalence ratio on the soot size distributions obtained for fixed dilution ratio, the effect of dilution ratio on the soot size distributions obtained for fixed equivalence ratio, and the effect of temperature on the soot size distributions obtained for fixed equivalence ratio. In addition to particle sizing measurements, gas samples were analyzed by a gas chromatograph to determine the concentration of gaseous species in the PFR thought to be important in soot formation. Our soot size distribution measurements demonstrate that the mixing conditions in the flame zone affect whether or not a nucleation mode was detected in the size distribution.