Combustion and Propulsion Laboratory (CAPL)

The primary focus of our research group is to conduct both fundamental and

applied research in the areas of combustion and propulsion. Our group mainly

focuses on the following research areas:

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• Futuristic Propulsion Technologies

• High-Speed Propulsion Systems and Detonation-based Engines

• Supersonic and Hypersonic Propulsion Systems

• Air-Breathing Propulsion Systems for Hypersonic Flight

• Supersonic Combustion

• Detonation and Explosion Physics

• Combustion and Reacting Flows

• Flame Spread and Fire Dynamics

• Wildland Fires, Fire Whirls, Fire Emissions, Pool Fires

• Soot Formation and Oxidation

• Gas Turbine Combustion

• Gas Turbine Engines

• Combustion Emissions 

• Rocket Propulsion

• Nanoenergetics 

• Combustion-Generated Functional Nanoparticles, Flame Synthesis

• Chemical Kinetics (Jet Fuel, Biofuel, and Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuel Combustion Chemistry, Green Fuels)

• Flame Synthesis (Carbon Nanotubes, Graphene, Quantum Dots, Nanomedicine, etc.)

• Renewable and Sustainable Energy 

• Experimental Fluid Dynamics

• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

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Research Excellence, Innovation, and National Impact

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The Combustion and Propulsion Laboratory (CAPL) research group at IIT Kanpur has established a distinctive and internationally relevant research program spanning combustion science, fire dynamics, detonation physics, advanced propulsion, soot and particulate formation, and functional nanomaterials. A defining strength of the group is its ability to bridge fundamental scientific discovery, technological innovation, and societal impact, translating advances in basic science into solutions that address challenges of national and global significance.

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The group's research lies at the convergence of fundamental combustion chemistry, complex reacting-flow phenomena, fire and explosion science, high-speed propulsion, environmental sustainability, and advanced materials engineering. This interdisciplinary research philosophy has created an unusually broad impact continuum—from uncovering fundamental physical and chemical mechanisms at the laboratory scale to developing knowledge, infrastructure, and technologies with potential applications in aerospace, energy, industrial safety, environmental protection, and advanced materials.

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Pioneering Contributions to Fire Dynamics and Wildland Fire Science

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One of the group's particularly distinctive contributions has been its pioneering research on turbulent wind-driven flames and wildland fire spread, an area of growing scientific and societal importance amid intensifying wildfire hazards worldwide. The group has developed a universal theory/correlation for estimating local and global mass-burning rates in wind-driven flames, together with predictive relationships for key fire characteristics, including fire behaviour, flame morphology, and flame pulsation. Through systematic experimental investigations and mechanistic analysis, the group has further elucidated the complex heat-flux characteristics and heat-transfer pathways governing flame propagation and fire spread. These studies provide fundamental insight into the coupled interactions among wind, buoyancy, turbulence, flame dynamics, radiation, and heat transfer that determine the evolution of large-scale fires.

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Beyond their fundamental significance, these contributions have important implications for wildfire prediction, fire-risk assessment, fire-safety engineering, infrastructure protection, and the development of scientifically informed strategies for mitigating increasingly severe wildland-fire hazards. The research, therefore, represents a compelling example of how fundamental combustion and fire science can contribute directly to one of the most pressing environmental and public-safety challenges of the twenty-first century.

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Establishing Strategic National Capability in Detonation Science and Advanced Propulsion

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A landmark achievement of the group has been the establishment of India's first Detonation Tube Research Facility (DTRF) at IIT Kanpur, creating an important indigenous capability for advanced research in detonation physics, gaseous explosions, flame acceleration, and deflagration-to-detonation transition (DDT).

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The DTRF represents far more than a specialised experimental facility. It constitutes a strategic national research capability in an area directly relevant to advanced aerospace propulsion, energy conversion, and industrial safety. The facility enables controlled investigation of the fundamental mechanisms governing the initiation, propagation, acceleration, and transition of highly energetic reactive flows, thereby providing a foundation for both scientific discovery and technology development.

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The group's research on ignition promoters and nanocatalysts in gaseous detonations constitutes another important contribution toward understanding and ultimately controlling these extreme combustion phenomena. By exploring mechanisms for modifying ignition and reaction characteristics, this work opens new avenues for the controlled initiation and optimisation of detonation processes and for improving the performance of emerging detonation-based energy and propulsion systems.

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The broader significance of this research extends well beyond propulsion. A deeper understanding of flame acceleration, DDT, and gaseous explosions can contribute to improved approaches for preventing and mitigating accidental explosions in mining, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, process, and other industrial environments. The knowledge generated through this research can support the development of improved hazard-assessment methodologies, safety protocols, explosion-mitigation strategies, and engineering design practices.

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At the same time, the ability to understand and control detonation phenomena offers transformative opportunities for high-efficiency energy conversion and next-generation propulsion, particularly for supersonic and hypersonic flight. Detonation-based propulsion concepts have the potential to achieve high thermodynamic efficiency while enabling compact, high-performance propulsion architectures. The group's work therefore contributes simultaneously to the fundamental science of extreme reacting flows and to the technological foundations of future aerospace and high-energy systems.

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The establishment of the DTRF consequently represents a convergence of scientific excellence, infrastructure creation, strategic technological capability, and national relevance, positioning IIT Kanpur as an important centre for advanced research in detonation and high-speed propulsion.

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Advancing the Fundamental Science of Soot and Particulate Formation

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The group has also made significant contributions to one of the most enduring challenges in combustion science: understanding the formation, evolution, and oxidation of soot and particulate matter. To address this challenge, the group has established a multidisciplinary Soot Science and Combustion Chemistry Laboratory dedicated to uncovering the fundamental molecular and physicochemical pathways through which gas-phase combustion products evolve into the earliest solid carbonaceous particles.

This research addresses a critical knowledge gap in combustion science: the transition from molecular precursors to nascent soot, a process involving intricate interactions among chemical kinetics, molecular growth, transport, nucleation, surface chemistry, and oxidation.

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Through an integrated experimental–computational research framework that employs stretch-stabilised and burner-stabilised stagnation flames, the group systematically investigates the influence of temperature, strain rate, equivalence ratio, pressure, fuel composition, residence time, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) chemistry, and low-temperature oxidation pathways on soot inception and evolution.

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The fundamental knowledge generated through this research has significant implications for the development of cleaner combustion technologies, improved predictive models of particulate emissions, advanced emission-control strategies, and more sustainable energy-conversion systems. By addressing soot formation at its molecular origins rather than solely at the level of downstream emissions, the research seeks to provide the scientific foundation necessary for fundamentally cleaner combustion.

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Transforming Flames into Platforms for Advanced Nanomaterial Synthesis

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An especially innovative and distinctive dimension of the group's research is the flame synthesis of carbon quantum dots (CQDs). This work represents a powerful example of how fundamental knowledge of combustion and carbon chemistry can be redirected toward the synthesis of high-value functional materials.

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Rather than viewing flames exclusively as systems for energy release—or as sources of undesirable carbonaceous pollutants—the group's research explores flames as rapid, scalable, and energy-efficient chemical processing environments for producing advanced carbon-based nanomaterials.

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Flame-based synthesis offers several potentially important advantages over conventional approaches, including rapid processing, scalability, continuous operation, and potentially reduced energy and processing requirements. By exploiting the highly reactive, high-temperature, and chemically tunable environment of flames, the research demonstrates a novel pathway for converting fundamental combustion chemistry into a platform for advanced materials manufacturing.

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This work represents a particularly compelling example of cross-disciplinary innovation, in which combustion science, chemical kinetics, nanoscience, materials chemistry, and engineering converge to create entirely new technological possibilities.

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Carbon Quantum Dots: Bridging Combustion Science and Advanced Materials

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Carbon quantum dots are of considerable scientific and technological interest because of their distinctive optical, electronic, surface, and photochemical properties, as well as their potential applications in sensing, bioimaging, photocatalysis, energy technologies, optoelectronics, and environmental applications.

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The group's work on flame-synthesised CQDs therefore establishes a unique bridge between combustion engineering and advanced functional materials, expanding the traditional boundaries of combustion research. The same scientific principles that govern molecular transformation, carbon formation, and soot evolution can be harnessed and controlled to create technologically valuable nanomaterials.

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This research direction exemplifies the group's broader philosophy: fundamental scientific challenges can become opportunities for technological innovation when viewed through an interdisciplinary lens. It transforms combustion from merely a science of energy release and pollutant formation into a versatile platform for advanced materials synthesis and manufacturing.

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An Integrated Research Program with Broad Societal Impact

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Taken collectively, the group's research portfolio is distinguished by an unusual combination of scientific depth, technological originality, infrastructure creation, interdisciplinary breadth, and societal relevance.

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The group has advanced the fundamental understanding of wildland fire dynamics and flame spread; developed predictive frameworks for complex wind-driven flames; established pioneering national infrastructure for detonation and explosion research; investigated the mechanisms underlying flame acceleration and deflagration-to-detonation transition; explored strategies for controlling energetic reactive flows; addressed the molecular origins of soot and particulate formation; and pioneered combustion-based approaches for the synthesis of functional nanomaterials such as carbon quantum dots.

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What unifies these seemingly diverse research directions is a common scientific foundation: the study and control of complex reacting flows, combustion chemistry, transport phenomena, instability, heat transfer, and multiscale physical and chemical interactions. This unified perspective enables the group to move seamlessly between fundamental questions and technologically consequential applications.

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The resulting impact extends across several strategically important domains:

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• Aerospace and propulsion: advancing the scientific foundations of detonation-based and high-speed propulsion technologies.

• Fire safety and disaster mitigation: improving understanding and prediction of wildland fires, flame spread, fire behaviour, and explosion hazards.

• Energy and sustainability: enabling improved combustion efficiency, cleaner energy conversion, and advanced reactive-flow technologies.

• Industrial safety: generating scientific knowledge relevant to explosion prevention, hazard assessment, and risk mitigation in high-consequence industries.

• Environmental protection: advancing the fundamental understanding of soot and particulate formation to support cleaner combustion and reduced emissions.

• Flame synthesis of advanced nanomaterials: developing innovative flame-based pathways for the scalable synthesis of high-value functional nanomaterials.

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From Fundamental Discovery to National Technological Capability

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In essence, the research program exemplifies how fundamental science can be transformed into technological capability and societal value. From understanding the physics governing destructive wildfires and accidental explosions to enabling safer, more efficient high-speed propulsion, from unravelling the molecular origins of soot to transforming flames into platforms for the synthesis of advanced nanomaterials, the group's research consistently seeks to expand the frontiers of what combustion science can achieve.

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The establishment of sophisticated experimental infrastructure, coupled with a sustained commitment to fundamental scientific inquiry and interdisciplinary innovation, has created a research ecosystem capable of addressing challenges that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. This combination of scientific rigour, experimental sophistication, computational insight, technological ambition, and societal relevance distinguishes the research program and provides a strong foundation for future breakthroughs.

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Through this integrated and forward-looking research vision, the group has positioned IIT Kanpur at the forefront of emerging research in combustion, fire and explosion science, detonation-based propulsion, clean energy, and functional nanomaterials. More importantly, it demonstrates the potential of fundamental reacting-flow science to serve as an engine for innovation across aerospace, energy, environmental protection, industrial safety, and advanced materials—domains that will be central to the technological and societal challenges of the future.

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