Study of Collected Carbon in Flames by Electric Field and Radiation Effect for Environmental Applications

Soot particles from laminar and turbulent diffusion flames are collected by means of a DC electric field. A copper probe located in the flame is used to collect soot particles at different conditions. Carbon particles are found to be positively charged so they collect on the negative probe. Current-voltage characteristics are measured to estimate the electrical properties during soot collection. The agglomeration of charged soot particles on the copper probe causes an increase in the electric current during collection. Soot powder samples are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX), Fourier-transformer infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Soot suspension is prepared from particulate samples to be characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS). Characterization by DLS shows data of different Gaussian distribution analysis. The relationship between structure and properties is investigated by means of several measurements such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermal gravimetrical analysis (TGA), and the experimental results are fully explained. XRD proves that soot powder samples contain large amounts of amorphous material with small amounts of crystalline soot nanoparticles. EDX shows that soot samples are composed of carbon, oxygen, and lead with percentages 91 %, 8 %, and 1 % respectively. We found from DLS that the average hydrodynamic diameter of soot particles is 379 nm. As well as it is observed that diameter of 25 % soot particles are less than 95 nm. TGA is employed to examine the thermal stability of the gasoline fuel soot. Thermal kinetics of soot nanoparticles with heat treatment is determined before and after irradiation. The average thermal activation energies of soot nanoparticles are found to be about 10.5±0.2 kJ.mol^-1 before gamma irradiation, which are greater than the bond energy of water in the interlayer space. TGA and DSC analysis are demonstrated that dissociative adsorption of water on the surface and in interlayer space of soot nanoparticles after heat treatment and/or ionized radiation. Gamma irradiation effects on thermal properties of soot samples are discussed