10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Nanostructure as a Paradigm for Describing Carbon Structure and Interpreting Its Formation
RANDY VANDER WAL, Madhu Singh, Joseph Abrahamson, Chethan Gaddam, Kuen Yehliu, Chung-Hsuan Huang, Penn State University
Abstract Number: 580 Working Group: Combustion-Generated Aerosols: the Desirable and Undesirable
Abstract Combustion produced soot is highly variable with details as dependent upon Nanostructure – structure on the nanoscale has always existed. Yet recognition of its importance in governing carbon’s chemical reactivity is comparatively recent. Nanostructure is generally described by the parameters of lamellae length, curvature (or tortuosity) and separation distance, measured perpendicular to the graphene segments. High resolution microscopy is necessary to access these scales with image analysis algorithms used to extract the spatial metrics. Aided by automated processing codes, distributions of each metric can be accumulated for their statistical description. Since 2004, nanostructure as a subject has appeared in more than two dozen papers. These studies have addressed nanostructure a) characterization, b) impact upon (carbon) oxidation, c) dependence upon molecular precursor and d) dependence upon combustion (i.e. formation) conditions, along with other related studies. Algorithms for nanostructure quantification provide measures by which to gauge the impact of these different formation conditions. Since the variations and more broadly formation conditions are generally specific to the source, nanostructure can serve as a paradigm by which to differentiate combustion sources by their combustion environments.