About ISF

ISF aims at improving the understanding of the formation of carbon-based particles at technical conditions. The biennial workshop series provides a forum for open discussions and interaction between delegates around the following six research programs:

Fundamental challenges:

  • Inception and gas鈥損article-phase chemistry to be coordinated by Working Group Leaders: Dr Georgios Kelesidis and Dr Francesco Carbone
  • Fine structure and other properties to be coordinated by Working Group Leaders: Dr Joaquin Camacho and Dr Mario Commodo
  • Pyrolysis of solid and liquid fuels to be coordinated by Working Group Leaders: Dr Chiara Saggese and Dr Tarek Beji听听

Technology and applications challenges:

  • Soot in flames from future fuels to be coordinated by Working Group Leaders: Dr Benedetta Franzelli and Prof Federica Ferraro
  • Methane pyrolysis to be coordinated by Working Group Leaders Dr Reza Kholghy and Dr Zhiwei Sun听
  • Wildland fires and Wildland-Urban-Interface(WUI) Fires to be coordinated by Working Group Leaders: Prof Samuel L. Manzello

Aims of the workshop

  • To identify common research priorities in the development and validation of accurate, predictive models of flames with soot and to coordinate research programs to address them.
  • To identify and coordinate well-defined target flames that are suitable for model development and validation, spanning a variety of flame types and fuels in each of the research programs.
  • To establish an archive of the detailed data sets of target flames with defined accuracy; and to provide a forum for the exchange and dissemination of these data.

All members of the research community are invited to participate in the听process of contributing听either experimental data or modelling calculations for one of the programs through the Program Leaders.

The workshop sets new targets for each successive meeting, at which the performance of different models are compared against detailed measurements. Comparisons are performed in simplified reactors that are carefully designed for the development and validation of numerical models, while being relevant to practical environments.

  1. Research priorities for ISF-8: The ISF issues call for contributions in the fields described below. Priority will be given to collaborative efforts in which multiple contributions can be made to a common topic to increase understanding. These topics can include various types of measurement on the same flow from different groups or comparisons of different models on the same phenomena or data sets. Contributions of this type will be a focus for ISF-8 within the following fields:

Inception听and gas-particle-phase chemistry: Contributions are invited ahead of ISF-8 to advance understanding of:

  • Inception and multi-phase interactions: The processes via which carbon nanomaterials first form from the gas phase or interaction of gas and solid phase and the conditions that determine the preferential growth of various classes of fine structure.
  • The condensed phase: More detailed and systematic understanding of composition, distribution, and role in evolution towards the solid phase.
  • Prediction: methods that provide robust prediction across a range of operating conditions of relevance to regimes of practical significance.
  • Computational Tools: Leverage atomistic simulations (e.g., DFT, ReaxFF etc) and machine learning to quantify inception pathways and condensed-phase evolution across different conditions, including emerging reactor environments (e.g., high-pressure catalytic systems, steady state vs. transient)

Fine structure and chemical composition: Contributions are invited to advance characterisation and modelling in the context of:

  • Classification: The key classes of fine structure, chemical composition, and associated properties of carbon nanoparticles.
  • Pathways: The key chemical and environmental pathways that trigger the formation of each of the above classes.

Influence of volume fraction: Contributions are invited that address the influence of volume fraction on the evolution of carbon nanomaterials, including aggregate morphology, which applies where volume fraction is high. This regime of high particle volume fraction applies in pyrolysis reactors, which differs from combustion environments where most previous data have been obtained and where the influence of volume fraction is typically negligible.

Influence of turbulence and sub-grid-scale modelling: Contributions are invited in understanding the role of turbulence in the evolution of carbon nanoparticles and their gas-phase precursors and in the development and application of subgrid-scale models for application to LES methods.

Hybrid/Multi-scale and data-based modelling: Approaches integrating atomistic-scale kinetics with continuum soot models validated under industrially relevant conditions are encouraged including approaches that leverage machine learning across scales.

Advances in experimental methods: Contributions are invited in the development and application of improved experimental methods (addressing laminar and turbulent), particularly for the in situ measurement of:

  • Mixture fraction in the presence of nanomaterials
  • Aggregate morphology
  • Aggregate and primary particle size distributions
  • Particle fine structure
  • Particle composition (C/H ratio).
  1. Technology and applications challenges for ISF-8: ISF will introduce three new programs to advance understanding and predictive models in the following three classes of technology that are aligned with major societal challenges:

Soot in and emitted from flames from fuels of future significance, including methane, sustainable aviation fuels, and ammonia/fossil-fuel blends. Contributions are particularly sought for pure fuels with additives of species, such as hydrogen, ammonia, and oxygenated species, and the development of advanced diagnostics and modelling tools to understand the unique inception and particle formation from these novel fuel chemistries.

Methane pyrolysis: Addressing the co-production of hydrogen and carbon-rich particulate materials within conditions of relevance to the range of emerging reactors, including thermal plasmas, microwave, molten catalysts, and fluidised beds. Contributions are particularly sought in the following fields:

  • High volume fractions: Established through conditions such as long residence time, wider ranges of temperature, and/or composition.
  • Increased pressure: Where data are particularly lacking.
  • Collaborative work for industrially relevant reactor conditions: Efforts to develop or validate models under industrially relevant reactor conditions (e.g., high pressure, surface catalysis, plasma, and microwave fields), particularly with the involvement of researchers with expertise in plasma science, catalysis, or electromagnetic materials.
  • Kinetics model evaluation: Model evaluation for technologies, such as heterogeneous catalysis, plasma chemistry, and electromagnetic heating, used in industrial applications.

Fires: Addressing the pyrolysis of solid and liquid fuels and the evolution of carbon-based nanomaterials under conditions relevant to uncontrolled fires, particularly wildland fires and wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires for which fuel types differ significantly. Contributions are particularly sought as follows:

  • Establishing suitable databases: Identify experimental configurations, or if none exist, propose new configurations that are well suited to the development and validation of models (with well-defined input and boundary conditions, together with detailed data), and employ them to establish new detailed and systematic databases for:
    • Pyrolysis of solid and liquid materials and the species evolved
    • Transitions between pyrolysis and combustion
    • Pyrolysis with and without ignition
    • Smouldering combustion as compared to flaming combustion and associated particle evolution
  • Developing simplified or data-based models for wildland and WUI fires: In the case of traditional fires that occur inside buildings, focus will be more on evaluation existing models for these scenarios.

Workshop committees

  • Organising committee

    Dr Mario Commodo

    Professor Gus Nathan
    University of 亚洲色吧, Australia

    Professor Bassam Dally

    King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

    Dr Klaus-Peter Geigle

    German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

    Professor Heinz Pitsch

    RWTH Aachen University, Germany

    Dr Chris Shaddix

    Sandia National Laboratories, USA

    Prof Tiziano Faravelli

    Politecnico di Milano, Italy

    A/Prof Hope Michelsen

    University of Colorado Boulder

    Professor Michael Mueller


    Princeton University, USA

  • Scientific advisory committee

    Dr Meredith Colket

    Dr Meredith Colket
    United Technologies Research Center (Retired), USA

    Professor 脰mer G眉lder


    University of Toronto, Canada

    Professor William Roberts


    King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia

    Professor Hai Wang


    Stanford University, USA

    Professor Henning Bockhorn

    Karlsruher Institut f眉r Technologie (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Germany

    Professor Andrea D'Anna

    Universit脿 degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (University of Naples Federico II), Italy

    Professor Peter Lindstedt

    Imperial College, UK

    Prof Christof Schulz

    University of Duisburg, Essen

    Prof Murray Thomson

    University of Toronto, Canada

    Mr Roscoe Taylor

    Mr Roscoe Taylor

    Global Operational Excellence Director, Orion Engineered Carbons

    Dr Enoch Dames

    Dr Enoch Dames

    Director R&D, Monolith

    Prof Angela Violi

    University of Michigan

  • Program leaders

    Prof Reza Kholghy

    Carleton University, Canada

    Methane Pyrolysis

    Dr Chiara Saggese

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA

    Pyrolysis of Solid and Liquid Fuels

    Dr Georgois Kelesidis

    ETH Zurich, Switzerland

    Inception and Gas-particle-phase Chemistry

    Dr Joaquin Camacho

    San Diego State University, USA

    Fine Structure and Other Properties

    Dr Zhiwei Sun

    Dr Zhiwei Sun

    University of 亚洲色吧, Australia

    Methane Pyrolysis

    Dr Benedetta Franzelli

    CentraleSupelec, France

    Soot in Flames from Future Fuels

    Dr Federico Ferraro

    Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany

    Technology and Applications Challenges

    Dr Mario Commodo

    Institute of Science and Technology for the Sustainable Energy and Mobility (STEMS), Italy

    Fine Structure and Other Properties

    Dr Tarek Beji

    Ghent Institute, Belgium

    Pyrolysis of Solid and Liquid Fuels

    Prof Samuel L. Manzello

    Institute of Fluid Science (IFS) at Tohoku University, Japan

    Wildland Fires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires

    Dr Francesco Carbone

    University of Connecticut, USA

    Inception and Gas-particle-phase Chemistry