Experimental and Numerical Investigations of Ferrocene-Doped Propene Flames

Ferrocene-doped low-pressure, laminar, premixed propene/oxygen/argon flames of different stoichiometries were investigated experimentally using laser induced fluorescence (LIF) and the results were compared with numerical simulations. The influence of ferrocene on the flame temperature proved to be minimal both in the measurement and in the simulation. The measured flame temperatures were 100-250 K below the adiabatic flame temperature, as expected. However, the modeled flame temperatures were around 450 K below the measurements. It is assumed that the reason for this lies in the incorrect modeling of the flame speed since systematic errors in the LIF measurements should be small, as discussed in the paper. Iron atom concentrations were also measured using LIF. The results show the influence of the stoichiometry on the iron atom concentration, which is also reproduced by the model. The majority of the added iron was observed to exist as atomic iron in the flame. As more oxygen becomes available in leaner flames, iron will tend to form more FeO so that the iron atom concentration decreases with decreasing equivalence ratio.