Using Small Impurities of Inert Gases to Prevent the Combustion of Methane from Transitioning to an Explosion

The combustion of methane–air mixtures is used as an example to show that small additives of inert gases can help prevent the critical conditions of combustion transitioning to the explosion mode. It is found that the transfer of resonant energy in the trimolecular termination of reaction chains prevents combustion from transitioning to an explosion.