Electrothermography apparatus for kinetics of rapid high-temperature reactions

A computer-assisted electrothermography setup has been developed to determine the intrinsic kinetics of rapid heterogeneous reactions under conditions of high heating rate. In this method, metal wires are heated in a reactive gas atmosphere to desired temperature in a controlled manner by passing electric current, and then by measuring time-dependence characteristics of electric power applied to the wire, the reaction kinetics is extracted. The described setup allows heating rates up to 3×105 K/s and permits investigation of reaction kinetics over time scale of few milliseconds to seconds. Other applications are also possible that require fast heating and temperature control.