Account for Incomplete Combustion

It will be noted, however, that the preceding calculation is relatively inaccurate. This is particularly due the allowance for complete combustion of the gas whereas, in reality, the reaction stops after the onset of the chemical equilibrium at a certain temperature Tmax that can be much lower than Tmax calculated by use of the expression 

As an example consider the explosion of a stoichiometric mixture of carbon monoxide with oxygen. 

From tabular data the heat content of CO2 at T ax is CvT ax = 02 kJ. Then, taking the CO2 heat capacity as 54 kJ/mol K, the maximum explosion temperature is 5 600 K. 

The inconsistency of this result with the real value is recognized even by the fact that at a temperature as high as 5 600 K carbon dioxide would be completely dissociated to CO and 0 (see [230]). 

Since the conversion is incomplete, at Tmax the gas consists of four components CO, O2, 0, and CO2. The calculated maximum explosion temperature for this case is Tmax = 2 880 K. Thus, the true temperature of adiabatic explosion of a stoichiometric CO/O2 mixture, Tmax is about half the value of Tmax calculated before and corresponding to the complete conversion of CO + 1/2 O2 to CO2. 

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