Excerpt from Inhibition of Premixed Carbon Monoxide-Hydrogen-Oxygen-Nitrogen Flames by Iron Pentacarbonyl

The oxidation mechanism of CO has fewer reactions than those of hydrocarbon fuels, allowing easier isolation of the important inhibition reactions. For this reason, many researchers have used CO flames in studies of halogen inhibition [9 The simplicity of the CO system has additional significance in the present work. In previous studies with methane flames, the rates of key inhibition reactions suggested by Jensen and Jones [17] were increased in order to accurately match the observed burning velocity reductions. It is of interest here to determine if the faster rates are necessary for modeling moist CO flames which are chemically much closer to the rich hz-oz flames used by Jensen and Jones (reactions of iron-containing species with hydrocarbons are not presently included in the mechanism). Finally, carbon monoxide flames are relevant to fire research since CO is a dominant intermediate species in hydrocarbon flames and its oxidation is often the rate-limiting step in product formation.

The approach in the present research is to determine the effect of fe(co)'s on the overall reaction rate of premixed flames. The burning velocity of a premixed laminar flame is a relative measure of the overall reaction rate. Since this reaction rate is a fundamental parameter affecting the stabilization and fuel consumption rate of fires, the extent to which it is influenced by the agent is a first measure of the agent' 5 potential as a fire suppressant. Although suppression tests on full-scale fires will be required to assure the effectiveness of any agent, laboratory burners have several important benefits. Their simplicity allows rapid assessment of inhibitor performance in many flame conditions and at various concentrations, and the flames are highly reproducible and stable. Premixed laminar flames can be nearly adiabatic in the laboratory, and are easily modeled with existing computer programs, allowing straightforward interpretation of the effect of the inhibitor. By using detailed chemical kinetic mechanisms together with full transport calculations, the chemical species profiles throughout the flames are calculated. These results provide great insight into both the chemical and physical mechanisms of the inhibitor. Also, in a well-designed laboratory burner, there is little ambiguity about how much agent reaches the flame. Although techniques such as detailed flame structure measurements provide valuable information about the chemical species at each location in the flame for one particular condition, burning velocity and extinction strain rate measurements have the advantage of allowing rapid testing of the effect of the inhibitor over a wider range of conditions.

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