Compact Combustion Mechanisms of Typical n-Alkanes Developed by the Minimized Reaction Network Method.

The existing combustion kinetic modeling method which aims at developing phenomenological combustion mechanisms characterized by multiple reactions confronts several challenges, including the conflicts between computing resources and mechanism scales during numerical simulation, etc. In order to address these issues, the minimized reaction network method for complex combustion system modeling based on the principle of simultaneous chemical equilibrium is proposed, which is aimed to develop combustion mechanisms with minimal reaction steps under a limited number of species. The concept of mechanism resolution is proposed in this method, and the reaction network with minimal reaction steps under a given mechanism resolution is constructed so that the scale of mechanisms is compressed greatly. Meanwhile, distinguishing from other mechanisms, the reversible form of elementary reactions is adopted and the classical two-parameter (A, Ea) Arrhenius equation fits the rate constants. Typical n-alkanes including n-butane, n-heptane, n-octane, n-decane, n-dodecane and n-hexadecane were taken as examples to indicate the development process of mechanisms and systematic kinetic validations were carried out. Results show that this method leads to very compact mechanisms with satisfactory accuracy, and it eliminates the process of mechanism reduction and is beneficial for mechanism optimization. This method and the derived kinetic mechanisms are hoped to contribute to combustion engineering applications.

Fast co-pyrolysis of biomass and lignite in a micro fluidized bed reactor analyzer.

The co-pyrolysis characteristic of biomass and lignite were investigated in a Micro Fluidized Bed Reaction Analyzer under isothermal condition. The synergetic effect was evaluated by comparing the experimental gas yields and distributions with the calculated values, and iso-conversional method was used to calculate the kinetic parameters of formation of each gas component. The results showed that synergetic effect was manifested in co-pyrolysis. For the range of conversion investigated, the activation energies for H2, CH4, CO and CO2 were 72.90 kJ/mol, 43.90 kJ/mol, 18.51 kJ/mol and 13.44 kJ/mol, respectively; the reactions for CH4 and CO2 conformed to 2 order chemical reaction model, and for H2 and CO conformed to 1.5 order chemical reaction model; the pre-exponential factors for CH4, CO2, H2 and CO were 249.0 S(-1), 5.290 S(-1), 237.4 S(-1) and 2.693 S(-1), respectively. The discrepancy of the kinetic parameters implied that there were different pathways for forming the different gas.