New Insights into Low-Temperature Oxidation of Propane from Synchrotron Photoionization Mass Spectrometry and Multiscale Informatics Modeling
We investigated the low-temperature oxidation of propane at 4 Torr and temperatures of 530, 600, and 670 K. The oxidation is initiated by pulsed laser photolysis of oxalyl chloride, (COCl)2, at 248 nm, which rapidly generates a ~1:1 mixture of 1-propyl (n-propyl) and 2-propyl (i-propyl) radicals via the fast Cl + propane reaction. Reactants, intermediates and products are probed with isomeric selectivity by time-resolved multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometry (MPIMS) with tunable synchrotron vacuum UV radiation as the ionization source. At all three temperatures, the major stable product species is propene, formed in the C3H7 + O2 reactions by direct HO2-elimination from both n- and i-propyl peroxy radicals. The experimentally derived propene yields relative to the initial concentration of Cl atoms are (20 ± 4)% at 530 K, (55 ± 11)% at 600 K, and (86 ± 17)% at 670 K at a reaction time of 20 ms. The lower yield of propene at low temperature reflects substantial formation of propyl peroxy radicals, which do not completely decompose on the experimental time scale. In addition, we detect the C3H6O isomers methyloxirane, oxetane, acetone and propanal as minor products. Our measured yields of oxetane and methyloxirane, which are co-products of OH radicals, suggest a revision of the OH formation pathways in models of low-temperature propane oxidation. The experimental results are modeled and interpreted using a multi-scale informatics approach that is presented in detail in a separate publication (Burke, M. P.; Goldsmith, C. F.; Klippenstein, S. J.; Welz, O.; Huang H.; Antonov I. O.; Savee J. D.; Osborn D. L.; Zádor, J.; Taatjes, C. A.; Sheps, L., Multi-Scale Informatics for Low-Temperature Propane Oxidation: Further Complexities in Studies of Complex Rections, submitted, 2015). The model predicts the time profiles and yields of the experimentally observed primary products well, and shows satisfactory agreement for products formed mostly via secondary radical-radical reactions.