The ethyl radical was observed in a low-pressure premixed gasdine/oxygen/argon flame by using tunable vacuum ultraviolet photoionization mass spectrometry. The ionization energy（IE） of the ethyl radical was derived to be（8. 24 ± 0. 02） eV from the photoionization efficiency curve. In addition, a high-level ab initio Gaussian-3 （G3） method was used to calculate the energies of the radical and its cation. The calculated adiabatic ionization potential is 8. 17 eV, which is in good agreement with the experimental value.
Here we report a combustion endstation at National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL) and some primary experimental results. Synchrotron radiation can provide the tunable vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) photon with the high intensity and the good collimation. VUV photoioni-zation is a single-photon ionization process. Combined with molecular-beam mass spectrometry (MBMS), the VUV single-photon ionization can be applied to detect the combustion products, especially the intermediates and free radicals produced from combustion process. This method is proved to be a powerful tool for combustion study, which could be helpful for developing combustion kinetic models and understanding the mechanism of combustion reactions.
A comprehensive experimental study of the premixed ethylene/oxygen/argon flame at 2.667 kPa with a stoichiometric equivalence ratio （Ф=1） was performed with the tunable synchrotron photoionization and molecular-beam sampling mass spectrometry techniques. The isomers of most observed species in the flame were unambiguously identified by measurements of the photoionization etticiency spectra, e.g. C3H4, C2H4O and C4H4. The mole fraction profiles of species up to C7H8 were measured by scanning the burner position at the selected photon energies near ionization thresholds, and the flame temperature profile was obtained by using Pt/Pt-13%Rh thermocouple. Compared with the previous studies, a lot of new flame species： C3H2, C3H3, C3H5, C2H6O, C4H2, C4H4, C4H6, C3H4O, C3H6O, C3H8O, C5H6, C4H8O and C7H8, were observed. A series of free radicals in the flame are detected to be CH3, C2H3, C2H5, HCO, C3H3 and C3H5. Based on the experimental work, a reduced reaction mechanism was developed including 40 species and 223 reactions. Modeling and measurements agree well for the major species and most intermediates. A detailed kinetic model is desired for this flame.
