Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are considered important soot precursors. Exploring and understanding the PAH formation pathways are essential building-blocks toward developing reliable kinetic models that can accurately simulate soot formation. This work aims at developing a comprehensive kinetic model emphasizing on PAH formation chemistry based on the detailed species profiles obtained in a highpurity single-pulse shock tube coupled to gas chromatography / mass spectrometry techniques. ln particular, the pyrolysis of different aromatic fuels and mixtures is studied under combustion-like conditions, over a wide temperature range (900-1800 K), pressures of around 20 bar, and reaction times of 4 ms. The fuels include propylene, propyne, benzene and toluene with and without addition of C2/C3 fuels, phenylacetylene, phenylacetylene + acetylene/ethylene, Ca-C10 alkylbenzenes. The outputs of the present work include: i) an extensive experimental database of species profiles, including PAHs up to four-rings; ii) development of a detailed and comprehensive chemical kinetic mode!; iii) advanced understanding on the kinetic schemes and mechanisms involved in the fuels thermal decomposition and formation of soot precursor molecules. These results can serve for future mode! developments concerning more complex fuels and surrogates as well as the base for the construction of soot codes for simulation of particle formation in combustion applications.