รายละเอียดเอกสาร

This study explores combustion of highly oxygenated fuel blends (glycerol/methanol, G/M) to mitigate carbon footprint using a novel fuel injector, called Swirl Burst (SB) injector. The recently developed SB injector yields fine droplets immediately rather than a breaking jet/film of conventional injectors. The advanced atomization resulted in ultra-clean combustion with high fuel flexibility even for viscous oils without fuel preheating. The present work investigates the effects of fuel composition and the atomizing air to liquid mass ratio (ALR) across the injector on the global combustion characteristics of G/M blends without fuel preheating in an uninsulated lab-scale combustor. Results show that the SB injection resulted in mainly clean lean-premixed and near complete combustion for the G/M mixes of 50/50, 60/40 and 70/30 by power with near-zero emissions of CO and NOx. Increase in ALR resulted in more radially distributed flames with slightly reduced flame lift-off height, with ultra-clean and near complete combustion for all the ALRs for the 50/50 and 70/30 blends. Clean and efficient G/M combustion without fuel preheating achieved by the fuel-flexible SB injection signifies the potential to combust crude glycerol − the largest oxygenated byproduct of biodiesel production − to enable biofuel cost effectiveness with near-zero emissions.