Explosion regions of propane, isopropanol, acetone, and methyl acetate/inert gas/air mixtures

• Published in: Journal of loss prevention in the process industries 2016-09, Vol.43, p.669-675
• Main Authors: Abdelkhalik, Aksam, Askar, Enis, Markus, Detlev, Brandes, Elisabeth, El-sayed, Ibrahim, Hassan, Mohamed, Nour, Mohamed, Stolz, Thomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acetone; Atoms & subatomic particles; Explosion limits; Explosions; Isopropanol; Methyl acetate; Nitrogen; Oxygen; Propane
• ISSN: 0950-4230; 1873-3352
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jlp.2016.04.001

The explosion regions for propane, isopropanol, acetone, and methyl acetate with air in the presence of nitrogen, argon, helium, and carbon dioxide were determined experimentally according to EN 14756/EN1839, method T. Except for propane, all the measurements were executed at 323 K and 1 bar. Propane experiments were carried out at 293 K and 1 bar. The results show that for the same type of inert gas, propane, isopropanol, and acetone have great closeness concerning the concentration of the inert gas at the apex of the explosion envelope in a ternary diagram with air as oxidizer. This leads to consistency in the limiting oxygen concentration (LOC) and minimum required amount of inert gas (MAI) values. Concerning methyl acetate, the apex was always reached at higher percentages of inert gases compared with the other fuels. This can be attributed to the presence of two oxygen atoms inside the chemical structure. Calculation of the explosion regions was carried out based on calculated adiabatic flame temperature (CAFT) method. The flame temperatures for the experimentally determined fuel/air/N2 mixtures were calculated. Then, these temperatures were used to predict the explosion limits of similar mixtures with other inert gases than nitrogen. The modeling results show reasonable agreement with the experimental results. •The explosion regions of propane, isopropanol, acetone, methyl acetate/air/inert gas were studied.•The type of inert gas and relative mass amount of oxygen in chemical structure of fuels affected the explosion regions.•The limiting values of the explosion diagrams reflect the amount of oxygen in the molecular structure.•The CAFT model shows logical agreement with the experimental results for fuels/air/inert gas mixtures.