ABSTRACT
To enable low carbon fuels and improve combustion efficiency, it is critical to develop advanced combustion and propulsion systems which can operate at extremely fuel lean, high pressure, high altitude, high speed, and low- or high-temperature conditions in a broad range of power loads and fuel flexibilities. Plasma provides a promising technology to control combustion chemistry, transport, and heating in a very short timescale (nanoseconds to milliseconds) and to improve combustion performance and emissions in internal combustion engines, industrial heating and processing burners, aircraft and unman aerial vehicle (UAV) engines, rockets, detonation and pressure gain combustors, and supersonic ramjet engines.
Chemistry and transport are the two major important processes that affect combustion properties and emissions. To understand how plasma affects combustion, it is essential to understand how plasma chemistry and dynamics will affect combustion chemistry and transport and the burning properties.
Therefore, in this chapter, we will focus on combustion and plasma chemistry. We will first introduce the key elementary reactions and chemistry pathways at high, intermediate, and low-temperature combustion for a few representative fuels such as H2, methane, ammonia, large hydrocarbons, and oxygenated fuels. Then, we will highlight the key plasma chemistry reactions via electron-impact and excited molecules for radical production and heat generation. Finally, we will discuss the major reaction pathways and intermediate species as well as kinetic models for plasma-assisted combustion of H2, methane, ammonia, large hydrocarbons, and oxygenated fuels.
