Soot morphology in a laminar co-flow diffusion flame

There continues to be great interest in soot formation and destruction due to its harmful effects on human health. Not only is the quantity of soot important, but also its morphology, as the morphology dictates both how long it is airborne and how deeply into the lungs it is inhaled. Many researchers have found that mature soot is fractal like, with a mass fractal dimension of around 1.8 for soot generated in diffusion flames. In this paper, a new technique, Planar RDG/PFA, is used to decipher primary particle size and number of primary particles per agglomerate of soot generated in a laminar co-flow diffusion flame. This approximate technique provides spatially and temporally resolved morphology information. One of the necessary assumptions is a priori knowledge of the mass fractal dimension, assumed to be 1.8, and geometric standard deviation of number of primary particles per aggregate, assumed to be 2.3 in this work. © 2003 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.