Effects of Fuel Quantity on Soot Formation Process for Biomass-Based Renewable Diesel Fuel Combustion

Soot formation process was investigated for biomass-based renewable diesel fuel, such as biomass to liquid (BTL), and conventional diesel combustion under varied fuel quantities injected into a constant volume combustion chamber. Soot measurement was implemented by two-color pyrometry under quiescent type diesel engine conditions (1000 K and 21% O2 concentration). Different fuel quantities, which correspond to different injection widths from 0.5 ms to 2 ms under constant injection pressure (1000 bar), were used to simulate different loads in engines. For a given fuel, soot temperature and KL factor show a different trend at initial stage for different fuel quantities, where a higher soot temperature can be found in a small fuel quantity case. but a higher KL factor is observed in a large fuel quantity case generally. Another difference occurs at the end of combustion due to the termination of fuel injection. Additionally, BTL flame has a lower soot temperature, especially under a larger fuel quantity (2 ms injection width). Meanwhile, average soot level is lower for BTL flame, especially under a lower fuel quantity (0.5 ms injection width). BTL shows an overall low sooting behavior with low soot temperature compared to diesel; however, trade-off between soot level and soot temperature needs to be carefully selected when different loads are used.

Effects of Fuel Quantity on Soot Formation Process for Biomass-Based Renewable Diesel Fuel Combustion

Soot formation process was investigated for biomass-based renewable diesel fuel, such as biomass to liquid (BTL), and conventional diesel combustion under varied fuel quantities injected into a constant volume combustion chamber. Soot measurement was implemented by two-color pyrometry under quiescent type diesel engine conditions (1000 K and 21% O2 concentration). Different fuel quantities, which correspond to different injection widths from 0.5 ms to 2 ms under constant injection pressure (1000 bar), were used to simulate different loads in engines. For a given fuel, soot temperature and KL factor show a different trend at initial stage for different fuel quantities, where a higher soot temperature can be found in a small fuel quantity case but a higher KL factor is observed in a large fuel quantity case generally. Another difference occurs at the end of combustion due to the termination of fuel injection. Additionally, BTL flame has a lower soot temperature, especially under a larger fuel quantity (2 ms injection width). Meanwhile, average soot level is lower for BTL flame, especially under a lower fuel quantity (0.5 ms injection width). BTL shows an overall low sooting behavior with low soot temperature compared to diesel, however, trade-off between soot level and soot temperature needs to be carefully selected when different loads are used.

SOOT PARTICLE MEASUREMENT IN ENGINE CYLINDER: A REVIEW

This review article describes a list of most common techniques of soot measurement, particularly for in-cylinder diesel engine soot. The techniques presented in this paper are Laser Induced Incandescence (LII), Light/Laser Extinction Measurement (LEM), Light/Laser Scattering Measurement (LSM), Emission Tomographic (ET) and Thermophoretic Sampling. All techniques are briefly elaborated and their principles of operation, as well as their applications and current issues, are covered. It is commonly acknowledged that non-invasive techniques feature some advantages and are more preferable compared to invasive techniques. Besides, more modern technique such as ET is said to be most widely applied in the future due to its high level of accuracy. However, there are possibilities that both invasive and non-invasive methods can complement each other to obtain more accurate soot measurements.

Experimental and computational investigation of temperature effects on soot mechanisms

Effects of initial ambient temperatures on combustion and soot emission characteristics of diesel fuel were investigated through experiment conducted in optical constant volume chamber and simulation using phenomenological soot model. There are four difference initial ambient temperatures adopted in our research: 1000 K, 900 K, 800 K and 700 K. In order to obtain a better prediction of soot behavior, phenomenological soot model was revised to take into account the soot oxidation feedback on soot number density and good agreement was observed in the comparison of soot measurement and prediction. Results indicated that ignition delay prolonged with the decrease of initial ambient temperature. The heat release rate demonstrated the transition from mixing controlled combustion at high ambient temperature to premixed combustion mode at low ambient temperature. At lower ambient temperature, soot formation and oxidation mechanism were both suppressed. But finally soot mass concentration reduced with decreasing initial ambient temperature. Although the drop in ambient temperature did not cool the mean in-cylinder temperature during the combustion, it did shrink the total area of local high equivalence ratio, in which soot usually generated fast. At 700 K initial ambient temperature, soot emissions were almost negligible, which indicates that sootless combustion might be achieved at super low initial temperature operation conditions.

Soot reference materials for instrument calibration and intercomparisons: a workshop summary with recommendations

Soot, which is produced from biomass burning and the incomplete combustion of fossil and biomass fuels, has been linked to regional and global climate change and to negative health problems. Scientists measure the properties of soot using a variety of methods in order to quantify source emissions and understand its atmospheric chemistry, reactivity under emission conditions, interaction with solar radiation, influence on clouds, and health impacts. A major obstacle currently limiting progress is the absence of established standards or reference materials for calibrating the many instruments used to measure the various properties of soot. The current state of availability and practicability of soot standard reference materials (SRMs) was reviewed by a group of 50 international experts during a workshop in June of 2011. The workshop was convened to summarize the current knowledge on soot measurement techniques, identify the measurement uncertainties and limitations related to the lack of soot SRMs, and identify attributes of SRMs that, if developed, would reduce measurement uncertainties. The workshop established that suitable SRMs are available for calibrating some, but not all, measurement methods. The community of users of the single-particle soot-photometer (SP2), an instrument using laser-induced incandescence, identified a suitable SRM, fullerene soot, but users of instruments that measure light absorption by soot collected on filters did not. Similarly, those who use thermal optical analysis (TOA) to analyze the organic and elemental carbon components of soot were not satisfied with current SRMs. The workshop, and subsequent, interactive discussions, produced a number of recommendations for the development of new SRMs, and their implementation, that would be suitable for the different soot measurement methods.