A chemical kinetic study of the reaction of hydroxyl with furans

Abstract Furans, a class of cyclic ethers, are potential renewable fuels and additives to conventional fuels. High-temperature oxidation of furans is dominated by their reaction with hydroxyl radical. In this work, rate coefficients for the reaction of hydroxyl (OH) with furan ( k 1 ), 2-methyl furan ( k 2 ) and 2,5-dimethyl furan ( k 3 ) were measured behind reflected shock waves over a temperature range of 890–1388 K and pressures of 1–2 atm. Hydroxyl radicals were generated via the thermal decomposition of tert-butyl-hydroperoxide. The OH radicals were monitored using the well-characterized R 1 (5) rotational line of the A–X (0, 0) band in the ultraviolet region near 306 nm. Measurements were carried out under pseudo-first-order conditions using two different mixtures for each furan. The measured rate coefficients can be expressed in Arrhenius form as: k 1 = 783.39 × T 3 exp ( 1866.7 / T ) cm 3 mol - 1 s - 1 ( 924 - 1388 K ) k 2 = 8.85 × 10 13 exp ( - 2285 / T ) cm 3 mol - 1 s - 1 ( 890 - 1333 K ) k 3 = 1.03 × 10 14 exp ( - 2128 / T ) cm 3 mol - 1 s - 1 ( 915 - 1278 K ) This paper presents, to our knowledge, the first high-temperature measurements of the rate coefficients of the reactions of furan and its alkylated derivatives with the OH radical. These data will be critical in improving the predictive capability of chemical kinetic mechanisms of furans.