| Abstract | The optical properties of soot are a much-studied topic, yet most works on the subject yield surprisingly different results. This is perhaps due to the variation in fuels used, from solid fuels such as plexiglass and polystyrene, to liquid fuels such as n-heptane and toluene, to gaseous fuels like propane, acetylene, ethylene and ethane. Alternatively, observed differences could be due to the variation in methods used for the measurements, such as reflectivity of compacted soot, tomographic reconstruction, and optical methods using combinations of scattering, absorption, and extinction. Some studies involve calculation of theoretical properties rather than direct measurement, such as Lee and Tien who arrived at their values using dispersion model. What these studies share is that the soot under study was obtained either within a flame or very shortly post-flame or sampled from a flame and physically altered after cooling. The present study examines the optical properties of combustion-generated soot, sampled far enough downstream that is has cooled to ambient temperature. This soot will be characterized with the aid of scanning and transmission electron microscopy (SEM/TEM) along with a multiple low-angle scattering diagnostic. |
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