Size evolution of soot particles from gasoline and n-heptane/toluene blend in a burner stabilized stagnation flame

- Soot particle size evolution of gasoline in a premixed flame was investigated.
- Size distribution of gasoline and heptane/toluene blend was qualitatively similar.
- Gasoline's sooting features more persistent nucleation and much faster growth rate.

The evolution of soot particle size distribution function (PSDF) in premixed flames of gasoline (34% aromatics by volume) and a n-heptane/toluene blend (66% n-heptane/34% toluene by volume) was investigated in the burner stabilized stagnation (BSS) flame configuration, using the micro-orifice probe sampling and scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS). The aim of this study is to illustrate the similarities and differences of sooting propensity between the real fuel and the simple hydrocarbon blend in premixed flame conditions. The mole ratio of carbon to oxygen (C/O) in the unburned gas was kept constant at 0.6 and similar maximum flame temperatures and temperature-time histories were kept between the two cases, so that we could focus on the fuel composition effects on sooting propensity. In addition, the size distribution, the total number density, and the volume fraction of soot were also compared to those previously measured for ethylene and propene flames under comparable conditions. It was observed that the particle size distributions of both gasoline and heptane/toluene flames evolve from the unimodal distribution (nucleation mode only) to the bimodal (both nucleation and coagulation mode) distribution. Compared to the heptane/toluene blend, the soot formation in gasoline flame features more persistent nucleation and much faster growth rate.