The influence of operating conditions on the formation of soot and hydrocarbons in flames

Technical devices for the combustion of hydrocarbons with air are usually designed in a way that they exhibit high reliability and high efficiency. The efficiency is computed from thermodynamic considerations, usually assuming that the combustion products for hydrocarbon-air mixtures are CO{sub 2} and H{sub 2}O and that the combustion takes place in stoichiometric mixtures. Real systems, however, deviate more or less from that assumption and their exhaust may contain CO, traces of hydrocarbons like PAH or aldehydes and other substances. There are many different combustion devices in use, from simple gas or oil burners for house heating to the more complicated ones in power stations, combustion chambers, e.g., for jet engines and piston engines. In order to achieve high reliability and (relatively) save operation, most of these devices operate with diffusion flames or at least with some participation of diffusion flames. 42 refs., 12 figs., 1 tab.