Gas-Phase Thermal Reactions

This book is dedicated to gas-phase thermal reactions which take place in engines, burners, and industrial reactors for the production of mechanical or thermal energy, for the incineration of pollutants, or for the manufacture of chemicals. It also studies their effect on the environment: fires, explosions, tropospheric pollution, the greenhouse effect, and holes in the ozone layer. After a short reminder of the concepts and laws of thermodynamics, and of chemical and physical kinetics, the book suggests a methodology for the kinetic modelling of these reactions: generation and reduction of reaction mechanisms, estimation of kinetic data of elementary reactions, estimation of the thermodynamic data and transport data of molecules and free radicals, and analysis and validation of mechanisms by comparison of calculated results with the experimental results obtained using laboratory reactors. The models thus generated carry all the information necessary to allow them to be incorporated into computer programs for the calculation of reactors or of the fluid dynamics of reacting gases. Tables of numerical data and a list of computer programs and URLs complete the book.