Reduced Chemical Kinetic Mechanism for the Oxidation of Methyl Methacrylate in Flames at Atmospheric Pressure

Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is the main pyrolysis product of the widely used polymer polymethyl methacrylate; therefore, a compact mechanism of MMA oxidation is of interest for CFD modeling of flame propagation over this polymer. A reduced mechanism of MMA combustion consisting of 263 elementary reactions involving 66 species was developed based on a detailed chemical-kinetic mechanism of MMA oxidation in flames using Chemical Workbench software. The developed mechanism was validated against experimental data on the speed of premixed MMA/air flame at an equivalence ratio $$0.9 < \phi < 1.3$$ and against literature data on the structure of a MMA/O2/Ar ( $$\phi$$ = 1) flame stabilized on a flat burner at a pressure of 1 atm. The proposed reduced kinetic model for MMA describes the experimental data with satisfactory accuracy, and the modeling results for the full and reduced mechanisms of MMA oxidation are in good agreement with each other in terms of the concentrations of the major flame species and the concentrations of most combustion intermediates, including hydrogen, methane, ethylene, acetylene, propane, acetaldehyde, methyl acrylate, etc.