Unsuspected intermediates

Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories’ Combustion Research Facility are part of an international team that has detected a new class of compounds previously unknown in flames, a breakthrough that could lead to soot reduction, decreases in flame pollutants and improved fuel cells.

The discovery of these compounds, called enols, is the biggest breakthrough so far from a powerful new flame chemistry probe, operated at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), that was developed by researchers from Sandia, LBNL, Cornell University, and the University of Massachusetts in late 2002.

This machine, and a similar device operating at the National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in Hefei, China, investigates molecules sampled from flames by combining mass spectrometry (to reveal molecular weight) with ionization by vacuum-ultraviolet light emitted from a synchrotron. One key capability of the machines is that they are able to distinguish isomers — molecules made of the same atoms but in different arrangements — that can have very different chemical characteristics. Enols are less-stable isomers of other well-known combustion intermediates.