Combustion and Emission Characteristics of Biofuels Used for Transportation: METRANS Research Project 08-01

摘要

The world faces both an energy crisis and the problem of global warming due to increasing emissions of green-house gases, particularly CO2. Because of dwindling petroleum reserves in the USA, there is an urgent need to develop alternative fuels. Bio-derived fuels are one of the most viable and affordable alternatives. We focus on several biofuels, specifically dimethyl-ether (DME), a clean fuel derived through processing of biomass-derived syngas, and several low molecular weight methyl-esters as surrogates of fatty acid methyl-ester (FAME) type biofuels. We study the fundamental combustion characteristics of these fuels and their pollutant emissions, particularly nitrogen oxides (NOx). We provide insight into the combustion characteristics of DME and its high temperature kinetics. We measure laminar flame speeds and extinction limits of DME/air mixtures using the counterflow configuration and compare them to published experimental data and to numerical simulations using an updated kinetic model.