Combustion Research is motivated by the premise that through the development of a detailed understanding of flame chemistry (and the interaction of fluid mechanics and chemistry) we will be able to maximize efficiency and minimize pollution. Combustion still accounts for the majority of energy produced by mankind and the combustion of fossil fuels is responsible for 80% of the energy produced from combustion. Nonetheless, sustainable economic growth will require displacing the fossil fuel production of energy (especially for transportation) with the design of new fuels and fuel blends deprived from bio-derived fuels or even from the carbon in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Soot Nucleation from PAH
Most of our group's recent work in Combustion Science has focussed on measurements and models for the formation of the earliest particles of soot in flames.
A Working Hypothesis
Measurements
Modeling
"Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality."
-Nikola Tesla
“You make experiments and I make theories. Do you know the difference? A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it.
-Albert Einstein