On the explosion of chain-thermal reactions

Abstract

AbstractA chain reaction of oxygen (reactant) and hydrogen (active intermediary) with mtrosyl chloride (sensitizer) as a catalyst may be modelled mathematically as a non-isothermal reaction. In this paper we present an asymptotic analysis of a spatially homogeneous model of a non-isothermal branched-chain reaction. Of particular interest is the so-called explosion time and we provide an upper bound for it as a function of the activation energy which can vary over all positive values. We also establish a bound on the temperature when the activation energy is finite.