Combustion of magnesium particles in carbon dioxide under microgravity conditions

Magnesium particles (1-2 mm) are ignited by a hot wire in room-temperature CO2 environment under microgravity and normal gravity conditions. In about 50% of experiments, regardless of the gravity level, a pulsating combustion regime is obtained which may be associated with the relatively low heat release in such oxidizer as CO2 and high heat losses. For stable combustion regime, the burning times measured in microgravity follows a quadratic dependence with the particle size, which is typical for the diffusion-controlled combustion. Good quantitative agreement with previous data obtained for particles of different sizes indicates that combustion mechanisms of magnesium in CO2 are identical in the range of particle sizes 0.05-5 mm.