Low energy electron scattering from fuels

Full text. Accurate and precise values of absolute total cross section (TCS) represent important information in many scientific and technological applications. In our case, for example, we are motivated to provide such information for electron-fuel collision processes which are specifically relevant to modeling spark ignition in alcohol-fuelled internal combustion engines. Many electron scattering TCS measurements are presently available for a diverse range of atomic and molecular targets. However, lack of data for important bio-molecular targets still remains. Disagreements between the available TCS data for the alcohols have prompted several studies of electron scattering collision of slow electrons with these molecules which are currently important in applications as bio- fuels. This relevance, which has attracted much attention, has been one of the subjects of a recent collaboration between experimental and theoretical groups in the USA and Brazil. Recently this collaboration reported first measurements and calculations of differential cross sections for elastic low-energy (rotationally unresolved) electron scattering by several primary alcohols. In this work we address methanol and ethanol TCSs at low energy range and report additional studies of resonant structure in ethanol using the detection of metastable states produced by electron impact excitation with high energy resolution. We have recently constructed a TCS apparatus in our laboratory at Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil, based on the well-known linear transmission technique. The experimental setup is based on the measurement of the attenuation of a collimated electron beam through a gas cell containing the atoms or molecules to be studied at a given pressure. It consists essentially of an electron gun, a gas cell and an electron energy analyzer composed of an array of decelerating electrostatic lenses, a cylindrical dispersive 127o analyzer and a Faraday cup. To our knowledge, there exist no reported experimental electron scattering TCSs for C2H5OH in the energy range of this work. The study of resonant structure in ethanol using metastable excitation by electron impact was done with another apparatus, also assembled recently at UFJF, in which the incident electron beam has an energy which is adjustable over the range 5-200 eV. A crossed-beam geometry was used and with a suitable placed detector so that a high fraction of the target excited to metastable levels was detected. That experiment allow us observe directly the shapes and widths of resonances and for detecting broad resonances