Abstract
AFTER flame has travelled through a homogeneous inflammable mixture, the gases left behind ('flame gases') rapidly reach what is for all practical purposes a state of equilibrium. The flame gases (like ordinary open flames) are in general luminous, and their temperatures as determined by (i) calculation, (ii) fine platinum wires and (iii) quartz-covered platinum wires of the same overall diameter, differ by hundreds of degrees C. Typical temperature measurements made with combustible gas – air mixtures during the pre-pressure period in large closed-vessel explosions by means of wires of 0·0005 in. diameter are given in the accompanying table. We think that the explanation is that a proportion of the tri-atomic molecules formed during combustion holds in very stable fashion an excess of energy (probably in virtue of abnormal structure), and because of this an abnormal dissociation takes place, the products of which combine on the plain platinum surface1,2.
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References
Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., 151, 236 (1944) and other papers referred to therein.
Phil. Mag., 34, 816 (1943).
Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., 230, 363 (1931), Photographs Nos. 5, 17, 22 and 32.
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DAVID, W., MANN, J. & MOBBS, F. Non-luminous Flame Gases. Nature 155, 273 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155273a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155273a0
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Non-luminous Flame Gases
Nature (1945)
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