Raman spectroscopy of diesel and gasoline engine-out soot using different laser power

We studied engine-out soot samples collected from a heavy-duty direct-injection diesel engine and port-fuel injection gasoline spark-ignition engine. The two types of soot samples were characterized using Raman spectroscopy with different laser powers. A Matlab program using least-square-method with trust-region-reflective algorithm was developed for curve fitting. A DOE(design of experiments) method was used to avoid local convergence. The method was used for two-band fitting and three-band fitting. The fitting results were used to determine the intensity ratio of D(for "Defect" or "Disorder") and G(for"Graphite") Raman bands. It is found that high laser power may cause oxidation of soot sample, which gives higher D/G intensity ratio. Diesel soot has consistently higher amorphous/graphitic carbon ratio, and thus higher oxidation reactivity, compared to gasoline soot, which is reflected by the higher D/G intensity ratio in Raman spectra measured under the same laser power.