Carbon dioxide dilution effect on flammability limits for hydrocarbons

Theoretical models to predict the upper/lower flammability limits of a mixture composed of hydrocarbon and inert carbon dioxide are proposed in this study. It is found theoretically that there are linear relations between the reciprocal of the upper/lower flammability limits and the reciprocal of the molar fraction of hydrocarbon in the hydrocarbon/inert gas mixture. These theoretical linear relations are examined by existing experimental results reported in the literature, which include the cases of methane, propane, ethylene, and propylene. The coefficients of determination (R2) of the regression lines are found to be larger than 0.959 for all aforementioned cases. Thus, the proposed models are highly supported by existing experimental results. A preliminary study also shows the conclusions in present work have the possibility to extend to non-hydrocarbon flammable materials or to inert gas other than carbon dioxide. It is coincident that the theoretical model for the lower flammability limit (LFL) in present work is the same as the empirical model conjectured by Kondo et al.