TY - CONF
T1 - Exploration of combustion processes and spray characterizations of Acetone-Butanol-Ethanol (ABE) in a constant volume chamber
AU - Lee, Timothy
AU - Lin, Yilu
AU - Wu, Han
AU - Meng, Lei
AU - Hansen, Alan
AU - Lee, Chia Fon F.
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CBET-1236786 and by the Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-EE0006864. 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 or the Department of Energy.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 International Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems. All rights reserved.
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Butanol, in comparison with ethanol, has more similar properties of current transportation fuel. These means it has a potential of being a more suitable blend for use in diesel engines. Unfortunately, butanol has a high cost of production. Acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) is an intermediate product of the fermentation process of butanol production. By using ABE directly in diesel fuels instead of butanol, the separation and purification processes are eliminated. As a result, it has a potential for greatly decreasing the overall cost for fuel production. This could lead to a larger commercial use of ABE-diesel blends on the market. Research has been conducted over the past five years regarding spray and combustion processes of both neat ABE and ABE-diesel blends. The main focus of this paper is to review the efforts made in fundamental spray research under quasi-steady flow field environments provided by a high-temperature, high-pressure constant volume chamber. Heat release rates high-speed Mie-scattering images were acquired from in-cylinder pressure traces to characterize liquid spray penetration. Natural flame luminosity was also captured to depict spatial and temporal soot distribution. It is observed that the acetone content has a major influence in the combustion behavior of the ABE mixture. As the acetone content increases, the combustion phasing significantly advances. Butanol is able to compensate the advancing effect caused by acetone and ethanol. Additionally, butanol can increase the overall energy density of the mixture and as a result makes the properties of the mixture closer to that of diesel.
AB - Butanol, in comparison with ethanol, has more similar properties of current transportation fuel. These means it has a potential of being a more suitable blend for use in diesel engines. Unfortunately, butanol has a high cost of production. Acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) is an intermediate product of the fermentation process of butanol production. By using ABE directly in diesel fuels instead of butanol, the separation and purification processes are eliminated. As a result, it has a potential for greatly decreasing the overall cost for fuel production. This could lead to a larger commercial use of ABE-diesel blends on the market. Research has been conducted over the past five years regarding spray and combustion processes of both neat ABE and ABE-diesel blends. The main focus of this paper is to review the efforts made in fundamental spray research under quasi-steady flow field environments provided by a high-temperature, high-pressure constant volume chamber. Heat release rates high-speed Mie-scattering images were acquired from in-cylinder pressure traces to characterize liquid spray penetration. Natural flame luminosity was also captured to depict spatial and temporal soot distribution. It is observed that the acetone content has a major influence in the combustion behavior of the ABE mixture. As the acetone content increases, the combustion phasing significantly advances. Butanol is able to compensate the advancing effect caused by acetone and ethanol. Additionally, butanol can increase the overall energy density of the mixture and as a result makes the properties of the mixture closer to that of diesel.
KW - ABE
KW - Acetone
KW - Alternative fuels
KW - Butanol
KW - Ethanol
KW - Spray characteristics
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M3 - Paper
AN - SCOPUS:85091994348
T2 - 13th International Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, ICLASS 2015
Y2 - 23 August 2015 through 27 August 2015
ER -