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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ARD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Aerosol Research Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ARD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Aerosol Research Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">2940-3405</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/ar-2025-41</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Nascent Titanium/Silicon-Containing Particle Formation in Corona Discharge Assisted Combustion</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bagya Ramesh</surname>
<given-names>Chanakya</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Han</surname>
<given-names>Frank Daoru</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wang</surname>
<given-names>Yang</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0543-0443</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Department of Chemical, Environmental, and Materials Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 33146, United States</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri, 65409, United States</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>02</day>
<month>01</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>20</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Chanakya Bagya Ramesh et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://ar.copernicus.org/preprints/ar-2025-41/">This article is available from https://ar.copernicus.org/preprints/ar-2025-41/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://ar.copernicus.org/preprints/ar-2025-41/ar-2025-41.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://ar.copernicus.org/preprints/ar-2025-41/ar-2025-41.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Plasma-assisted combustion (PAC) is a technology that introduces high concentrations of charges, ions, and radicals, making the flame more stable and efficient. At the same time, PAC has also been shown to alter particle formation during combustion. Here, we investigate the effect of a high-frequency (~ 21 kHz) alternating current (AC) corona discharge on particle formation and growth in a premixed flame, especially at the initial stages (with particle sizes below 10 nm). We first examined the mobility size distribution of ions generated from non-plasma combustion and corona discharge-assisted combustion. The mobility size for positive ions does not change with the introduction of plasma. However, the negative ions change towards a larger size, likely due to different ion chemistry from plasma. We then introduced corona discharge with varying powers into the flame that contains titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) or tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and obtained the size distribution of the synthesized nanoparticles. We found that particle growth is suppressed by the corona discharge under relatively higher precursor feed rates (above ~ 29 mg h&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; for TTIP and above ~ 60 mg h&lt;sup&gt;-1&lt;/sup&gt; for TEOS). The mobility diameter is suppressed by up to 12 % for TTIP and by up to 20 % for TEOS. We further used different charging models to examine the impact of plasma on particle formation. In the case of higher precursor feed rates, the incipient particle concentration is high within the flame region. As higher number of charges accumulated on particles from negative charge carriers (including electrons and negative ions) than positive ions, the particles are preferentially charged negative. Such preferential charging results in particle-particle repulsion which suppresses coagulation particle growth. The findings of this study can guide nanoparticle synthesis and particulate matter control using PAC.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="20"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Science Foundation</funding-source>
<award-id>2132655</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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<back>
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