Soot formation with C1 and C2 fuels using an improved chemical mechanism for PAH growth

Recently, an improved chemical mechanism of PAH growth was developed and tested in soot computations for a laminar co-flow non-premixed ethylene–air diffusion flame. In the present work, the chemical mechanism was enhanced further to accommodate the PAH gas phase growth in methane, ethylene and ethane co-flow flames. The changes in the mechanism were tested on a methane/oxygen and two ethane/oxygen premixed flames to ensure no degradation in its application to C2 fuels. The major soot precursors were predicted in a satisfactory matter. The robustness of the soot solution methodology was tested for different fuels by solving methane/air, ethane/air and ethylene/air co-flow laminar diffusion flames using a single solution algorithm for all three cases. The peak soot volume fractions, which varied by two orders of magnitude between fuels, were predicted within a factor of two for all flames. The computations were also able to reproduce the spatial distributions of soot and to explain the variation in soot formation pathways among the fuels. Despite a similarity in bulk properties of the flame, the soot particles in different flames exhibit significantly different growth modes. Ethylene/air flames tend to form soot earlier than methane/air flames and inception plays a bigger role in the latter.