A single-pulse shock tube coupled with high-repetition-rate time-of-flight mass spectrometry and gas chromatography for high-temperature gas-phase kinetics studies

Shock tubes are frequently used to investigate the kinetics of chemical reactions in the gas phase at high temperatures. Conventionally, two complementary arrangements are used where eithertime-resolved intermediate speciesmeasurements are conducted after the initiation of thereaction or where the product composition is determined after rapid initiation and quenching of thereaction through gas-dynamic processes. This paper presents a facility that combines both approaches to determine comprehensive information. A single-pulseshock tube is combined with high-sensitivity gas chromatography/mass spectrometry for product composition and concentrationmeasurement as well as high-repetition-ratetime-of-flight mass spectrometry for time-dependent intermediate concentration determination with 10μstime resolution. Both methods can be applied simultaneously. The arrangement is validated with investigations of the well-documented thermal unimolecular decomposition of cyclohexene towards ethylene and 1,3-butadiene at temperatures between 1000 and 1500 K and pressures ranging from 0.8 to 2.4 bars. The comparison shows that the experimental results for both detections are in very good agreement with each other and with literature data.

Source: Review of Scientific Instruments - October 3, 2016 Category: Physics Authors: P. Sela, B. Shu, M. Aghsaee, J. Herzler, O. Welz, M. Fikri and C. Schulz Source Type: research