Mechanism Research Of Plasma Assiated Methane Combustion Using Quantum Chemistry Theory

Plasma assisted combustion is widely used as a new type of combustion mode, such as in aerospace, energy source, environmental protection field occupies an important position. Coupled plasma and combustion system, in terms of heat, power and fluid influence on combustion, the analysis of the mechanism of plasma assisted combustion is difficult, so need to combine plasma physics, plasma dynamics, combustion dynamics, fluid dynamics with the analysis of plasma assisted combustion mechanism and the enhancement effect. This paper adopts the method of combining the numerical simulation with experimental measurement, determining the reaction mechanism of plasma assisted methane combustion, and researching the combustion flame emission spectrum, analysising of enhancement mechanism of plasma assisted methane combustion.In this paper based on the theory of quantum chemistry, which is micro level description of chemistry subject, using quantum chemical calculation software Gaussian analysis of main reaction of CH4â†'CH3â†'CH2Oâ†'HCOâ†'COâ†'CO2that have been already proven of plasma assisted methane combustion, determining the pathways and the activation energy of O2+H,CH4+OH/O/H, CH3+O and CH2O+OH/O/H, and then drawing reaction potential energy surface, obtaining the main reaction mechanism, as well as improving the main pathway of plasma assisted methane combustion. At the same time using Gaussian software analysis thermodynamic properties, structural characteristics, electrostatic potential distribution and vibrational distribution of main groups under the environment of plasma assisted methane combustion, geting the feature of the main groups.Using the spectrometer to measure plasma assisted methane combustion flame, and obtaining emission spectrum on the different parts of the plasma flame. Due to the different location of the flame contains different kinds of particles, causing different emission spectrum. To change the input power, results show that the relative intensity of emission spectrum as the input power increases. Besides using LIFBASE software for the simulated spectrum of N2+and OH, by comparing the experimental measurements and fitting for temperature of the rotation and vibration of N2+and OH with input power. Combined with the simulation and experimental results, analysis of enhancement mechanism of plasma assisted methane combustion, the results showed that the plasma led to the increase of the concentration of reactive and combustion temperature, as a result active group enhanced and activation energy reduced to achieve the goal of enhancement combustion.