Chapter VII. Quadratic Reaction of Active Particle Reproduction and Nonthermal Flame Propagation

Abstract

The widely discussed phenomenon of flame propagation without self-heating is considered using as examples the combustion of carbon disulfide and the decomposition of nitrogen trichloride. It is shown that, in the nonthermal propagation of a carbon disulfide flame and in its combustion, a determining role is played by a new type of elemental reaction: the displacement of an atom from a molecule by an attacking atomic reactant. For nitrogen trichloride as an example, an unambiguous quantitative relationship between the flame speed and the nonlinear branching rate constant is shown. In both processes, the proposed mechanisms are confirmed by the identification, using EPR and optical spectroscopy, of atoms and radicals that play the main role in the process. The equations corresponding to the identified mechanisms of the processes are confirmed by experiments.