TY - JOUR
T1 - A Modeling Study of the Effects of Butanol Addition on Aromatic Species in Premixed Butane Flames
AU - Hou, Jie
AU - Chang, Wayne
AU - Yan, Fuwu
AU - Lee, Chia Fon
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No.1236786) and China Scholarship Council (CSC, 201406950012). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation and CSC.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2016 SAE International.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - The motivation of the present work was to understand the mechanism by which alcohols produce less aromatic species in their combustion process than an equal amount of hydrocarbon with similar molecular structure does. Due to its numerous advantages over short-chain alcohols, butanol has been considered very promising in soot reduction. Excluding the influence of spray, vaporization and mixing process in engine cases, an adiabatic constant-pressure reactor model was applied to investigate the effect of butanol additives on aromatic species, which are known to be soot precursors, in fuel-rich butane flames. To keep the carbon flux constant, 5% and 10% oxygen by mass of the fuel were added to butane using butanol additive, respectively. Based on the soot reduction effects proposed in literature, effects on temperature, key radical concentrations and the carbon removal from the pathway to aromatic species were considered to identify the major mechanism of reduction in aromatic species. Reduction in aromatic species was observed in all cases compared with pure butane and the modeling results captured the trends in aromatic species with changes in oxygen content in the fuel. Analysis of the modeling results shows that in the condition of this study, temperature variation and radical concentration change generated by butanol additive have effects on reduction on aromatic species, but the effects are relatively small. The addition of butanol to butane reduces the aromatic species mainly by reducing the amount of carbon that is available to form precursor species.
AB - The motivation of the present work was to understand the mechanism by which alcohols produce less aromatic species in their combustion process than an equal amount of hydrocarbon with similar molecular structure does. Due to its numerous advantages over short-chain alcohols, butanol has been considered very promising in soot reduction. Excluding the influence of spray, vaporization and mixing process in engine cases, an adiabatic constant-pressure reactor model was applied to investigate the effect of butanol additives on aromatic species, which are known to be soot precursors, in fuel-rich butane flames. To keep the carbon flux constant, 5% and 10% oxygen by mass of the fuel were added to butane using butanol additive, respectively. Based on the soot reduction effects proposed in literature, effects on temperature, key radical concentrations and the carbon removal from the pathway to aromatic species were considered to identify the major mechanism of reduction in aromatic species. Reduction in aromatic species was observed in all cases compared with pure butane and the modeling results captured the trends in aromatic species with changes in oxygen content in the fuel. Analysis of the modeling results shows that in the condition of this study, temperature variation and radical concentration change generated by butanol additive have effects on reduction on aromatic species, but the effects are relatively small. The addition of butanol to butane reduces the aromatic species mainly by reducing the amount of carbon that is available to form precursor species.
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U2 - 10.4271/2016-01-0574
DO - 10.4271/2016-01-0574
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85082161884
JO - SAE Technical Papers
JF - SAE Technical Papers
SN - 0148-7191
T2 - SAE 2016 World Congress and Exhibition
Y2 - 12 April 2016 through 14 April 2016
ER -