Hydrogen is largely considered as an attractive additive fuel for hydrocarbons and alcohol-fueled engines. Nevertheless, a complete understanding of the interactions between blended fuel mechanisms under oxidative conditions at low initial temperature is still lacking. This study is devoted to the numerical investigation of the laminar burning velocity of hydrogen–hydrocarbon and hydrogen–alcohol fuels under several compositions. Estimations were compared with experimental data reported in the current literature. Additionally, the effects of hydrogen addition on engine performance, NOX, and other pollutant emissions of the mentioned fuels have been thermodynamically analyzed. From the study, it has been observed that the laminar burning velocity of the fuel mixtures increased with increasing hydrogen fractions and the peak value shifted to richer conditions. Besides, hydrogen fraction was found to increase the adiabatic flame temperatures eventually favoring the NOX formation for all fuel blends except the acetylene–hydrogen–air mixture where hydrogen showed a reverse effect. Besides, hydrogen is also found to improve the engine performances and helps to surge thermal efficiency, improve the combustion rate, and lessen other pollutant emissions such as CO, CO2, and unburned hydrocarbons. The model predicted well and in good agreement with the experimental data reported in the recent literature.
Nowadays, the knowledge of the gas-phase chemistry of formic acid is paramount for several industrial sectors, including energy supply and the production of bulk chemicals. In this work, a simplified kinetic mechanism and a detailed kinetic mechanism deriving from a rate-based selection algorithm were developed and tested against experimental data available in the literature. The former contains 141 species and 453 reactions, whereas the latter comprises 90 species and 1047 reactions. A focus on a low initial temperature (i.e., up to 500 K) was provided by comparing the numerical estimations with laminar burning velocity and jet-stirred measurements at several conditions. A good agreement among numerical predictions and experimental data was observed, especially for the simplified kinetic mechanism. The accuracy of the generated mechanism allowed for further analysis of the chemistry of the system, enlightening some determining aspects of the chemistry of formic acid. The produced mechanism can be also intended as per seed mechanism for the generation of kinetic models focused on the chemistry of biofuels. Indeed, the characterization of chemical aspects of formic acid occurring in an oxidative environment is crucial due to its relevance as an energy vector as well as an intermediate compound in the decomposition of larger hydrocarbons and bio-oils.
The need for lowering the environmental impacts has incentivized the investigation of biomass and biofuels as possible alternative sources for energy supply. Among the others, oxygenated bio-derived molecules such as alcohols, esters, acids, aldehydes, and furans are attractive substances as chemical feedstock and for sustainable energy production. Indeed, the presence of oxygen atoms limits the production of aromatic compounds, improves combustion efficiency (thus heat production) and alleviates the formation of carbon soot. On the other hand, the variability of their composition has represented one of the major challenges for the complete characterization of combustion behaviour. This work gives an overview of the current understanding of the detailed chemical mechanisms, as well as experimental investigations characterizing the combustion process of these species, with an emphasis on the laminar burning velocity and the ignition delay time. From the review, the common intermediates for the most relevant functional groups and combustion of biofuels were identified. The gathered information can be intended for the sake of core mechanism generation.
The need for sustainable energy has incentivized the use of alternative fuels such as light alcohols. In this work, reduced chemistry mechanisms for the prediction of fires (pool fire, tank fire, and flash fire) for two primary alcohols—methanol and ethanol—were developed, aiming to integrate the detailed kinetic model into the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The model accommodates either the pure reactants and products or other intermediates, including soot precursors (C2H2, C2H4, and C3H3), which were identified via sensitivity and reaction path analyses. The developed reduced mechanism was adopted to predict the burning behavior in a 3D domain and for the estimation of the product distribution. The agreement between the experimental data from the literature and estimations resulting from the analysis performed in this work demonstrates the successful application of this method for the integration of kinetic mechanisms and CFD models, opening to an accurate evaluation of safety scenarios and allowing for the proper design of storage and transportation systems involving light alcohols.
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