On the soot formation characteristics of an ammonia-ethylene counterflow diffusion flame based on the orthogonal decoupling method

Ammonia is regarded to be one of the most competitive fuels for achieving carbon neutral due to its carbon-free properties. In this work, the effects of adding ammonia (NH3) to the fuel stream of an ethylene counterflow diffusion flame on the soot formation characteristics were numerically investigated. The orthogonal decoupling method was used to completely separate the dilution, chemical and thermal effects of the added NH3 by introducing two different virtual NH3. The influence of these effects and their interactions were explored by the range analysis, respectively. The results show that the soot volume fraction (SVF) of the flame decreases under the dilution, chemical and thermal effects of NH3, with the dominated effect being the chemical effect, followed by the dilution effect, and the least is the thermal effect. Besides, the chemical-thermal interaction also has an important impact on the SVF. The increase of SVF is dominated by the HACA surface growth, while the decrease of that is dominated by the OH oxidation. The HACA surface growth reaction is inhibited under the three effects of NH3 addition mainly due to a lower concentrations of C2H2 and H radical. The number density of soot increases under the chemical effect, while decreases under the dilution effect. The mole fractions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) reduces under these three effects, leading to a lower inception rate, which in turn has a significant effect on the number density of soot.