Calculation and analysis of the mobility and diffusion coefficient of thermal electrons in methane/air premixed flames

Simulations of ion and electron transport in flames routinely adopt plasma fluid models, which require transport coefficients to compute the mass flux of charged species. In this work, the mobility and diffusion coefficient of thermal electrons in atmospheric premixed methane/air flames are calculated and analyzed. The electron mobility is highest in the unburnt region, decreasing more than threefold across the flame due to mixture composition effects related to the presence of water vapor. Mobility is found to be largely independent of equivalence ratio and approximately equal to 0.4 m(2) V-1 s(-1) in the reaction zone and burnt region. The methodology and results presented enable accurate and computationally inexpensive calculations of transport properties of thermal electrons for use in numerical simulations of charged species transport in flames. (C) 2012 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.