Ethanol pyrolysis experiments in a variable pressure flow reactor

Abstract

Experimental profiles of stable species concentrations are reported for pyrolysis of ethanol in a variable-pressure flow reactor at initial temperatures near 950 K and at constant pressures ranging from 3 to 12 atm. We present a new technique for comparison of model predictions with experimental observations in order to overcome the problem that time shifting of zero-dimensional modeling results cannot accommodate the memory effects resulting from phenomena that occur in the mixing-diffuser region in the experiments. Using this new technique, comparison of the experiments with the recent ethanol kinetic model of Marinov shows that the model underestimates the fuel consumption rate and the yields of H 2 O and C 2 H 4 , the main products of ethanol decomposition, as well as CH 3 HCO and CH 4 , species related to abstraction channels. Both decomposition and abstraction reactions require significant modifications to improve detailed modeling of ethanol pyrolysis at the conditions of the reported experiments.

Decomposition Studies of Isopropanol in a Variable Pressure Flow Reactor

“…The design, instrumentation, and experimental methodology of this apparatus have been discussed in detail previously 16,17 and are therefore only briefly summarized here. Nitrogen carrier gas is heated by electric resistance heaters and homogeneously mixed with oxygen as it enters a 10.2 cm diameter quartz test section, see Error!…”

“…However, in the presence of heterogeneous non-idealities such as those found in the cases of ethanol, methyl formate, and isopropanol decomposition, simple time shifting cannot be applied. In their study of ethanol decomposition, Li et al 14,17 developed and evaluated an alternative initialization approach based upon computational methods. The "computational re-initialization" method of Li et al has been further discussed in more general terms recently by Dryer et al…”

“…The 17,28 . The execution of the constrained equilibrium technique is as described in Dryer et al 25 .…”

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.…”

Modeling and Analysis of Different Aspects of Finite-rate Chemical Kinetics in Hypersonic Combustors

“…A number of chemical models have been published for different hydrocarbons, such as methane [40][41][42], methanol [43,44], ethane [45,46], ethylene [47], ethanol [48], propene [49], propane [50], and heavier alkane, alkene, and aromatics containing more than four carbon atoms [9,51,52]. The mechanisms for heavy fuel compounds consist of hundreds of intermediate species and thousands of elementary reactions to describe the reaction pathways and predict the relevant combustion chemistry properties.…”