Determination of Soot Particle Size in a Diffusion Flame: A Dynamic Light Scattering Study

This article presents dynamic light scattering measurements of soot particles formed in a laminar propane-air diffusion flame. After a short introduction to the problem of soot formation in diffusion flames we give a brief survey of dynamic light scattering and of the special problems of such measurements and evaluation of data from flowing gas phases, including a short description of our experimental setup. In the experimental part we describe our measurements of soot particles in dependence of the height above burner and the distance from the lateral border of the flame. The particle size increases with ascending height above burner and decreases at fixed height towards the boundary layers of the flame.