A flame is a kind of plasma.

Wilson pointed out that the electrical conductivity of a flame might come from the presence of ions

in the flame.

In 1955, Calcote and King applied the Langmuir probe to measure ion current in flames and

determinated that the ions came from ionization of hydrocarbon radicals in the flame rather than

from impurities. At the same time, various experiments proved that ions coluld only be produced in

a hydrocarbon flame.

A typical hydrocarbon flame that possesses electric properties is a plasma. Such a flame i salso called

flame plasma.

If electrons in a plasma have a higher temperature than the ions, or the velocity of any species does

not follow the Maxwellian distribution, the plasma is called a nonthermal plasma. In the absence of

an electric field, a flame is a thermal plasma. When a voltage is applied to the flame, it remains

thermal until electrons obtain enough energy from the field to raise the electron temperature above

the ion temperature.

IONS IN FLAME

REVIEW OF THE ION CHEMISTRY IN FLAMES

Based on many experiments, it is widely accepted that charged species in a flame are generated

from chemi-ionization process. Calcote proposed that the following reaction may be responsible for

chemi-ionization in the flame: CH+O->HCO+ + E-

At the same time, it is agreed that H3O+ is the most abundant ion in hydrocarbon lean flames.

As no chemi-ionization reaction can be written to produce H3O+ from any neutrals, there must be

a channel from HCO+ to H3O+. A proton transfer reaction was suggested for thi species:

HCO+ + H2O-> H3O+ +CO

The reaction is exothermic and thus proceeds spontaneously. Its rate is very fast, so concentrations

of HCO+ observed in experiments are usually low. Besides H3O+, other cations were also calibrated

in fuel lean flames, such as CH5O+, C2H3O+,CH3+, ETC.

Prager suggested a proton transfer process from HCO+ as the channel for forming these cations:

HCO+ + A->HA+ +CO ,

where HA+ is the cation and Ais its parent neutral species.

The proton affinity of a neutral species A is defined as the energy released when a proton attaches

to the neutral to form HA+.

A higher value of the PA for a neutral means a higher energy release when its child cationi s formed.

However, these cations are nota s abundant as H3O+ in experiments, so Goodings suggested a

rearrangement channel, for these cations back to HCO+:

IONS+ +A -> HCO+ + B,

where A is CO, and B is the parent neutral species of the reacting ions.

The terminal channel is mainly the recombination process between H3O+ and E- as they are the

most abundant positively and negatively cherged species in the flame.

Anion echanisms are more complicated and our understanding of them is less developed. According

to experiments O2- and OH- were found to be the most abundant anion species in a flame.

Goodings suggested that O2- was the primary negative ion and the three-body attachment process:

E-+O2+M->O2-+M

Was the main formation channel, where M was the abundant neutral in the flame, such as O2 in ,

or H2O and N2 in Pragers mechanism.

Other anions, such as OH- and O-, are formed by charge exchange reaction or rearrangement

reaction with charge transfer from O2-. Therefore, the rate of reaction is the key factor determining

the ratio of the anion concentrations to the E- concentration in a flame.

Because the concentration of the third body M depends on the pressure, reaction is obviously a

pressure-dependent reaction. At the same time electrons, may obtain energy from the electric field

and the resulting high energy electrons can accelerate the progress of this reaction.

In Goodingswork, the electron attachment in pure O2 was included as the only channel for

generating anions, because the flame considered in thei work was a CH4/O2 premixed flame.

Prager added other channel, including M=O,H2O or N2 as the third body, in their mechanism.

The reaction pathway analysis for Pragers mechanism in the lean CH4/O2 premixed flame showed

that the associative detacheent process O2-+H2<->h2o2+e- was the main channel for consuming

anions.

Unfortunately, the rate of this reaction was notavailable in any experiments and was given

arbitrarily.

A recent simulation applied Pragers mechanism in a CH4/air premixed flame at atmosheric

pressure. The temperature used in the simulation was measured to accurately evaluate the heat

loss. One defect of this mechanism is enclosed that it might lead to an ureasonabe accumulation of

ions in simulations of the burnt regioni f the temperature i sas low as in the unburnt region due to

large heat loss. A further analysis showed that it was caused by the lack of consumation channels

for CHO3- and CO3-. Methods to avoid such a defect were proposed and the simulated results were

inproved. But at the same time, the concentrations of the two anions in the preheated zone also

became very low, while they were intended to be high a low temperature in accordance with the

experimental data. This contradiction shows the difficulty of developing anion mechanism. More

experiments are required to resolve this contradiction.

TRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF IONS AND ELECTRONS

Besides the ion chemistry, the transport properties of charged species are also important since they

determine the transport processes of charged particles. The transport properties discussed here are

the diffusion coeficient, or diffusivity, and the mobility of a charged species in a flame gas mixture.

The diffusivity determines the molecular diffusion due to a molar gradient. Unlike the neutral

species, the movement of a charged particle i salso affected by the electric field, arising from either

the field generated by the other charged particles or the external applied field. The mobility of a

charged species measures the ability of the species to move in an electric field, and is defined