Introduction

Abstract

Combustion of mixtures of fuel with air is widely used for the conversion of chemical energy to provide heat transfer in furnaces, or work transfer in engines. Once the components of a fuel are known quantitatively, straightforward calculation is possible of the stoichiometric mixture proportions (chemically balanced for complete reaction) with air or some other oxidant. Furthermore, if the resulting products are cooled, the proportions of stable molecular quantities are obtainable directly. Any known non-stoichiometric reactant mixture can be handled in a similar way. In a reverse manner, analytical data on cooled dry products of hydrocarbon combustion permit calculation of the carbon/hydrogen mass ratio of the parent fuel, and the fuel/air mass ratio of the parent mixture.