A Rapid Compression Machine Study of 2-Phenylethanol Autoignition at Low-To-Intermediate Temperatures

To meet the increasing anti-knocking quality demand of boosted spark-ignition engines, fuel additives are considered an effective approach to tailor fuel properties for satisfying the performance requirements. Thus, screening/developing bio-derived fuel additives that are best-suited for advanced spark-ignition engines has become a significant task. 2-Phenylethanol (2-PE) is an attractive candidate that features high research octane number, high octane sensitivity, low vapor pressure, and high energy density. Recognizing that the low temperature autoignition chemistry of 2-PE is not well understood and the need for fundamental experimental data at engine-relevant conditions, rapid compression machine (RCM) experiments are therefore conducted herein to measure ignition delay times (IDTs) of 2-PE in air over a wide range of conditions to fill this fundamental void. These newly acquired IDT data at low-to-intermediated temperatures, equivalence ratios of 0.35‒1.5, and compressed pressures of 10‒40 bar are then used to validate the 2-PE model developed by Shankar et al. (2017). It is found that this literature model greatly overpredicts the current RCM data. The comparison of experimental and simulated results also provides insights into 2-PE autoignition behaviors at varying conditions. Further chemical kinetic analyses demonstrate that the absence of the O2-addition pathway of β-R radical in the 2-PE model of Shankar et al. (2017) could account for the model discrepancies observed at low-to-intermediated temperatures.

Justification of the Energy Use of Cedar Husk Waste as an Environmentally Friendly Additive for Co-Combustion with Coal

In this paper, the properties of ignition of mixed fuel pellets formed on the basis of fairly typical energy coal and wood industry waste in the form of cedar husks are experimentally established. The technical characteristics of the initial fuel components and the mixtures based on them, the ignition delay times for different mass concentrations of biomass in coal, and the composition of flue gases formed during the thermal decomposition of these mixed fuels and their base components were determined. Pellets of mixed fuels were made by a hydraulic press. The experiments were performed in an air environment at temperatures from 600 °C to 800 °C. Recording of the processes of pellet ignition and combustion was carried out using a high-speed video camera with an image format of 1024 × 1024 pixels, and a frame rate up to 500 frames per second. The analysis of the flue gas composition was performed using a Test-1 factory gas analyzer (BONER Co.). It was found that the increase in the share of biomass up to 50% in the mixed fuel led to a significant reduction in the ignition delay time to less than 1 s and the sequestration of sulfur oxide emissions by 37.6% and of nitrogen oxides by 3.8% in the studied granular mixed fuels.

Hierarchical Auto-Ignition and Structure-Reactivity Trends of C2–C4 1-Alkenes

Ignition delay times of small alkenes are a valuable constraint for the refinement of the core kinetic mechanism of hydrocarbons used in representing combustion properties of real fuels. Moreover, the chemical reactivity comparison of those small alkenes provides a reference in object-oriented fuel design and logical combustion utilization. In this study, the ignition delay times of C2–C4 alkenes (ethylene, propene and 1-butene) were measured behind reflected shock waves first, with a fixed oxygen concentration (XO2 = 6%) and equivalence ratio (φ = 1.0) at various pressures of 1.2, 4.0 and 16.0 atm, in order to facilitate the comparison. Three chemical-based-Arrhenius-type correlations covering a wide range of temperature, pressure, equivalence ratio, and dilution were proposed. The simplified reaction network for pyrolysis and oxidation of 1-alkenes was depicted relying on the reaction classes of alkenes. Nine generally accepted mechanisms were used to simulate the ignition delay times measured by this study as well as literature. All the kinetic models show reasonable structure-reactivity trends for all of the three alkenes, but only NUIGMech 1.1 is capable of representing quantificationally the chemical reactivity at all tested conditions. Generally, ethylene exhibits the highest reactivity while propene presents the lowest at high temperatures. Analyses of sensitivity and flux indicate that the main oxidation pathway of ethylene is chain-branching, which accelerates the accumulation of free radical pools, especially for the Ḣ atom, Ȯ atom and ȮH radical, which results in the highest reactivity of ethylene. For propene and 1-butene, due to the presence of the allylic site, consumption of allylic radicals becomes the decisive step of oxidation and allylic radicals are mostly consumed by the HȮ2 radical. However, there are no such efficient reaction pathways for the formation of HȮ2 radicals during the propene oxidation process, while reaction pathways for HȮ2 formation in 1-butene are efficient. Thus, 1-butene presents higher reactivity compared to propene.

Reduced Chemical Kinetic Reaction Mechanism for Dimethyl Ether-Air Combustion

Development and validation of a new reduced dimethyl ether-air (DME) reaction mechanism is presented. The mechanism was developed using a modular approach that has previously been applied to several alkane and alkene fuels, and the present work pioneers the use of the modular methodology, with its underlying H/C1/O base mechanism, on an oxygenated fuel. The development methodology uses a well-characterized H/C1/O base mechanism coupled to a reduced set of fuel and intermediate product submechanisms. The mechanism for DME presented in this work includes 30 species and 69 irreversible reactions. When used in combustion simulation the mechanism accurately reproduced key combustion characteristics and the small size enables use in computationally demanding Large Eddy Simulations (LES) and Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS). It has been developed to accurately predict, among other parameters, laminar burning velocity and ignition delay times, including the negative temperature regime. The evaluation of the mechanism and comparison to experimental data and several detailed and reduced mechanisms covers a wide range of conditions with respect to temperature, pressure and fuel-to-air ratio. There is good agreement with experimental data and the detailed reference mechanisms at all investigated conditions. The mechanism uses fewer reactions than any previously presented DME-air mechanism, without losing in predictability.