Hot Stage Reactor

• The hot stage reactor was built in our lab and can achieve heating rates as high as 1,000 °C/s. These rates approach the heating rates obtained in industrial combustors.
  
  
• To achieve such high heating rates, coal or char particles are placed on or inside the mesh heating element that is attached to the two electrodes.
  
  
• The hot stage is placed under a microscope equipped with a video camera to observe ignition mechanisms and other transient phenomena occurring during pyrolysis or combustion. This video microscopy setup gives us higher magnifications than those achieved in the TGA/VMI reactor.
  

©1996 Sam Perkins and Kyriacos Zygourakis
Rice University