Catalytic ignition of dry carbon monoxide in a stagnation-point flow

Abstract The catalytic ignition of dry carbon monoxide and air in a planar stagnation-point flow over a platinum foil is studied in this paper. The heterogeneous reaction mechanism is modeled with the dissociative adsorption of the molecular oxygen and the nondissociative adsorption of CO, together with a surface reaction of the Langmiur-Hinshelwood type and the desorption reaction of the adsorbed product, CO 2 ( s ). The critical conditions for the catalytic ignition are deduced using high activation energy asymptotics of the desorption kinetics of the most efficient adsorbed reactant, CO( s ). When using the appropriate activation energy of the desorption reaction of CO( s ), the ignition temperature obtained in closed form compares very well with experimental results.