- Author
-
Wornat, J.
- Title
- Formation Mechanisms of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons From Aromatic Fuels. BFRL Fire Research Seminar. VHS Video.
- Coporate
- Princeton Univ., NJ
- Report
-
Video,
November 21, 2000,
- Keywords
-
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
|
fuels
- Abstract
- Two types of pollutants associated with the combustion of any organic fuel are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and soot. For gaseous hydrocarbon fuels, reactions involving the addition of C2 and C4 species have been shown to play a key role in PAH and soot formation reactions in a variety of combustion and pyrolysis systems. Other mechanisms might be expected to prevail, however, for certain liquid and solid fuels since aromatic units are inherent components of the fuels themselves. In order to investigate the reaction mechanisms responsible for PAH formation from fuels with aromatic constituents, we have performed high-temperature pyrolysis experiments with three aromatic fuels: benzene, anthracene, and coal. Compositional analysis of the reaction products, by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) with ultraviolet-visible diode-array detection, has enabled us to identify a number of multi-ring PAH and cyclopenta-fused PAH, many of which have never before been identified as products of aromatic fuels. The product distributions from all three aromatic fuels reveal that there are at least two types of reaction mechanisms at work--the first, involving combination of aryl species and cyclodehydrogenation; the second, ring fragmentation and combination of fragment species. These mechanisms, along with the experimental evidence supporting them, will be presented.