Origin of activated combustion in steady-state premixed burner flame with superposition of dielectric barrier discharge

The objective of this work is to understand the mechanism of plasma-assisted combustion in a steady-state premixed burner flame. We examined the spatiotemporal variation of the density of atomic oxygen in a premixed burner flame with the superposition of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). We also measured the spatiotemporal variations of the optical emission intensities of Ar and OH. The experimental results reveal that atomic oxygen produced in the preheating zone by electron impact plays a key role in the activation of combustion reactions. This understanding is consistent with that described in our previous paper indicating that the production of "cold OH(A(2) Sigma(+))" via CHO + O -> OH(A(2)Sigma(+)) + CO has the sensitive response to the pulsed current of DBD [K. Zaima and K. Sasaki, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 53, 110309 (2014)]