An experimental and modeling study of ethanol oxidation kinetics in an atmospheric pressure flow reactor

Abstract

Experimental profiles of stable species concentrations and temperature are reported for the flow reactor oxidation of ethanol at atmospheric pressure, initial temperatures near 1100 K and equivalence ratios of 0.61-1.24. Acetaldehyde, ethene, and methane appear in roughly equal concentrations as major intermediate species under these conditions. A detailed chemical mechanism is validated by comparison with the experimental species profiles. The importance of including all three isomeric forms of the C2H50 radical in such a mechanism is demonstrated. The primary source of ethene in ethanol oxidation is verified to be the decomposition of the C2H4OH radical. The agreement between the model and experiment at 1100 K is optimized when the branching ratio of the reactions of CzH50H with OH and H is defined by (30% C2H40H + 50% CHsCHOH + 20% CH3CH20) + XH. As in methanol oxidation, HOn chemistry is very important, while the H + 0 2 chain branching reaction plays only a minor role until late in fuel decay, even at temperatures above 1100 K.

A detailed chemical kinetic model for high temperature ethanol oxidation

“…These modeling efforts focused on problems of ethanol ignition delay from shock tubes [2,3,4,7], ethanol laminar flame speeds in burners [4,7], and product profiles from ethanol pyrolysis and oxidation studies in static [5], turbulent flow [4,6], and jet-stirred reactors [7]. Additional evidence of mechanistic features important to describing ethanol reaction kinetics from static [8 -11] and flow reactors [12 -14], and information on autoignition characteristics in a rapid compression machine [15] and combustion bomb [16], pressure, tem-perature, and mixture strength effects on flame propagation rates [17] or modes of formation of soot in diffusion flames [18,19] have proven to be useful for ethanol model development.…”

Numerical Modeling of Steady Burning Characteristics of Spherical Ethanol Particles in a Spray Environment

“…Such studies have been reported in the past by researchers [9][10][11][12]. Over the years, detailed kinetics studies on ethanol oxidation have also been reported [13][14][15][16][17]. These studies explain the basic oxidation characteristics and structure of ethanol flames.…”

Methane and methanol oxidation in supercritical water: Chemical kinetics and hydrothermal flame studies

“…The Pitz mechanism combines Holgate's H2-CO mechanism (Holgate and Tester, 1994b) with the Norton-Dryer ethanol mechanism (Norton and Dryer, 1992) and the Pitz-Westbrook C2 mechanism . Pitz made minor changes when assembling these sub-mechanisms (Alkam, et al, 1995).…”