10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Temperature Effects on Carbonaceous Particle Formation during Ethylene Pyrolysis in a Laminar Flow Reactor
JUNYU MEI, Mengda Wang, Xiaoqing You, Chung K. Law, Tsinghua University
Abstract Number: 683 Working Group: Carbonaceous Aerosol
Abstract Evolution of the particle size distribution functions (PSDFs) during ethylene pyrolysis in the laminar flow reactor was measured by a scanning mobility particle sizer coupled with the small orifice sampling technique. The sampling dilution ratio was calibrated and determined to eliminate the effects of particle loss in the sampling line. Investigation of various possible effects on the PSDFs indicates that while the PSDFs are very sensitive to the inlet flow rate, they are not much affected by the probe location and the sampling delay time within operating errors. Evolution of the PSDFs is realized by varying the inlet flow rates and compared for different ethylene concentrations (0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%) and tube temperatures (1573K, 1673K, 1773K). A distinct bimodal distribution is observed in all pyrolysis cases. The particle size distribution is found to be very sensitive to both temperature and fuel concentration. The increase of temperature leads to an exponential decrease of induction time for particle formation. The higher the fuel concentration, the earlier the soot inception occurs and the faster are the soot nucleation and mass growth rates.