Effect of longitudinal heat conduction on the catalytic ignition of carbonmonoxide in a boundary layer

The catalytic ignition of dry carbon monoxide and air in a boundary layer f low over a palladium plate is studied in this paper. The heterogeneous reac tion mechanism is modelled with the dissociative adsorption of the molecula r oxygen and the non-dissociative adsorption of CO, together with a surface reaction of the Langmuir-Hinshelwood type and the desorption reaction of t he adsorbed product, CO2(s). The critical condition for catalytic ignition, represented by the ignition Damkohler number, has been deduced using high activation energy asymptotics of the desorption kinetics of the most effici ently adsorbed reactant, CO(s). Longitudinal heat conduction along the plat e has been considered and its influence on the ignition temperature has bee n evaluated. This influence is rather weak, indicating that the flat plate boundary layer flow configuration is a robust device to determine the criti cal conditions for catalytic ignition.