Credit: Hope Michelsen, Sandia National Laboratories
Scientists discovered a mechanism that explains soot formation. The breakthrough in explaining the high-temperature gas-to-particle conversion is based on a series of rapid chemical reactions rather than typical particle nucleation by gas-phase condensation. These rapid chemical reactions involve resonantly stabilized radicals, which were observed in flames using aerosol mass spectrometry. These radicals drive fast chain reactions that lead to particle inception and growth (nm=nanometers).