Kinetic analysis of the gas-phase reactions of methacrolein with the OH radical in the presence of NOx

An explicit chemical mechanism for the reaction of methacrolein (MTA) with OH radicals in NOx-air systems, was simulated by solving the corresponding ordinary differential equations using Runge-Kutta-4-semi-implicit method. T he simulated results are consistent with the published experimental data an d the model accounts for all the major pathways by which MTA reacts in NOx- air systems. An eigenvalue-eigenvector analysis is used to extract meaningf ul kinetic information from linear sensitivity coefficients computed for al l species of the chemical mechanism at several time points. This method is used to get an objective condition for constructing a minimal reaction set. Also, a classic method called rate of production analysis (ROPA) was used for the study of the reactions relevance. Using the principal component inf ormation as well as the rate of production analysis the main paths of react ion are identified and discussed.