A reaction route network for hydrogen combustion

The 20 elementary reactions comprising the mechanism of hydrogen oxidation in the gas phase have been assembled into a so-called a reaction route (RR) network, i.e., a road map showing explicitly how a stoichiometric mixture of reactants (2H2+O2) is transformed into products (2H2O) via various sequences of elementary reactions such that the intermediate species are canceled resulting in the overall reaction (OR). The RR network is thermodynamically and kinetically balanced in that the nodes satisfy the quasi-steady state mass balance conditions while the affinities of the reactions in any cycle add up to zero. The network also possesses two unusual topological features that have not been observed so far. First, the nodes and cycles in the RR network may be balanced only assuming that the network is infinite. Second, for every “entry” in the network, there exists two and only two “exits”.