Reaction zone characterization of counter-flow diffusion flame with diluted and preheated reactants

Reaction zone characteristics were studied using hydroxy radical planar laser-induced fluorescence (OH-PLIF) technique for a counter-flow preheated (CH₄+N₂)/(Air+N₂) diluted diffusion flames. The effects of preheat temperature and dilute ratio on the reaction zone characteristics were investigated by demonstrating the OH intensity distribution and reaction zone thickness from OH-PLIF images. Under the experimental conditions of constant cold flow velocity, the results show that the OH intensity and reaction zone thickness decrease with the increase of dilute ratio at constant preheat temperature and increase with preheat temperature at fixed dilute ratio. The OH maximum intensity shifts towards the "lean" side of counter flow at constant preheat temperature, and it shifts towards the fuel side with the increase of dilute ratio of fuel stream and towards the oxidizer side with the increase of dilute ratio of oxidizer stream respectively. The feasibility of OH as a reaction zone marker in this diluted combustion is verified further. The variation of diffusion and chemical reaction rate of reactants due to preheat and dilution contributes to the reaction zone characteristics simultaneously. The effect of strain on the flame reaction zone should be included in the future work.     

Single mimivirus particles intercepted and imaged with an X-ray laser

X-ray lasers offer new capabilities in understanding the structure of biological systems, complex materials and matter under extreme conditions. Very short and extremely bright, coherent X-ray pulses can be used to outrun key damage processes and obtain a single diffraction pattern from a large macromolecule, a virus or a cell before the sample explodes and turns into plasma. The continuous diffraction pattern of non-crystalline objects permits oversampling and direct phase retrieval. Here we show that high-quality diffraction data can be obtained with a single X-ray pulse from a non-crystalline biological sample, a single mimivirus particle, which was injected into the pulsed beam of a hard-X-ray free-electron laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source. Calculations indicate that the energy deposited into the virus by the pulse heated the particle to over 100,000?K after the pulse had left the sample. The reconstructed exit wavefront (image) yielded 32-nm full-period resolution in a single exposure and showed no measurable damage. The reconstruction indicates inhomogeneous arrangement of dense material inside the virion. We expect that significantly higher resolutions will be achieved in such experiments with shorter and brighter photon pulses focused to a smaller area. The resolution in such experiments can be further extended for samples available in multiple identical copies.