Measuring CO and NO in Extreme Heat and Pressure

In the world of combustion research, scientists are always looking for better ways to measure what's happening. They want to know more than just the temperature. They want to see a full picture. This is where computed tomography (CT) comes in. It's like a medical CT scan, but for fires. It helps researchers see inside the combustion process. Two gases, carbon monoxide (CO) and nitric oxide (NO), are often produced when things burn. They are important to study because they can tell us a lot about the combustion process. But measuring them in extreme conditions is tricky. The heat and pressure can mess with the equipment. To tackle this, scientists used two techniques: tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS) and ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy (UVAS). They built a special chamber to test these techniques in high-temperature and high-pressure conditions. This chamber helped them create corrected absorbance databases for CO and NO. These databases are like dictionaries that help the equipment understand what it's seeing.The scientists then compared their corrected databases with existing ones, like HITRAN and ExoMol. They also tested the accuracy of their databases using standard gas in the chamber and a custom CT cell. The results were promising. The maximum error for CO was 2. 75%, and for NO, it was 4. 99%. This means the techniques are quite accurate. So, what does this all mean? Well, it's a big step forward in understanding combustion. By accurately measuring CO and NO in extreme conditions, scientists can learn more about how fires behave. This could lead to better fire safety measures and more efficient combustion processes. It's all about seeing the bigger picture and understanding the details.