ABSTRACT
Combustion processes are known to emit undesired pollutants-the burnt gases of practical combustion systems will not only consist of water and carbon dioxide, but may also contain CO, hydrocarbons, aldehydes, com pounds of nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, metals and halogens. With respect to public health considerations, soot formation is one of the most challen ging problems associated with combustion, especially since the complexity of chemical reaction sequences leading to soot seems almost unparalleled [1,2]. In this synthesis of large-mass structures and carbonaceous particles from aliphatic as well as aromatic fuels, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) have attracted much attention [3-6], not only because of their role as soot precursors, but also for their mutagenic and carcinogenic potential [7,8]. Their formation-and that of soot-as a consequence of many indi vidual reaction steps occurs on surprisingly short timescales, and in spite of decades of related research [9-15], many details in this chemical reaction network are not fully understood. Models are thus being developed [13,lb - 23] with the ultimate goal to design and optimize technical combustion systems and to predict PAH and soot formation-models which have to rely on experimental verification and validation.
