Isothermal catalytic combustion of <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-pentane/air mixtures on platinum wire

The transient response of the input power necessary to maintain isothermal conditions after a step temperature perturbation applied to a platinum wire immersed in a gaseous fuel/air mixture allows for the measurement of the reaction heat flow rate, directly related to the rate of the catalytic combustion. The S-shaped variation of this rate in time is employed to evaluate the induction period of the catalytic ignition. The effect of mixture composition, total pressure, and catalyst temperature on the induction period for the catalytic ignition of lean to stoichiometric n-pentane/air mixtures on isothermally heated platinum wire is reported and discussed. The mixture composition was varied between 1.40 and 2.56% n-pentane in air, the total pressure between 20 and 101 kPa, and the wire temperature between 470 and 600 K. The reaction rates, turnover frequencies, overall and partial reaction orders, and activation energies were determined from the analysis of the obtained results and compared to other reported data.