Breakthrough combustion technologies of air-fuel mixtures can be developed on the basis of new fundamental knowledge on combustion physics and chemistry, including detailed mechanisms of elementary atomic and molecular processes involved in the formation and destruction of harmful emissions and in the initiation and sustainment of burning in combustion chambers of various types. Samara National Research University has been awarded a megagrant from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation to create a laboratory for the purpose of development of physically justified models of combustion on the basis of new spectroscopic and kinetic data on chemical processes in combustion and flame characteristics. The laboratory is lead by Professor Alexander M. Mebel from Florida International University The objectives of this project include measurements and calculations of kinetic constants for the processes involved in initiation and sustainment of combustion, formation and destruction of pollutants (PAH, nitrogen oxides) and active species (radicals, intermediates, excited atoms and molecules, ions) and development of gas-dynamic and kinetic models of combustion based on physically proved rate constants and their validation on laminar model flames. Within this laboratory, a pyrolytic microreactor is being created with universal mass spectrometric detection of products of chemical reactions and with distinction of different isomers based on their photoionization cross sections.

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