Experimental Investigation of Ethanol Oxidation and Development of a Reduced Reaction Mechanism for a Wide Temperature Range

Rapid compression machine, shock-tube, plug-flow reactor, and heat-flux burner experiments were performed for stoichiometric and fuel-rich ethanol/air mixtures. The experimental ignition delay time conditions included temperatures from 801 to 1313 K at pressures of approximately 10, 20, and 40 bar. Species concentration profiles are measured in a range from 423 to 973 K at a pressure of 6 bar, and laminar burning velocities are measured in a range of 358–388 K at a pressure of 1 bar. The experimental results were simulated using the detailed reaction mechanism AramcoMech 3.0, showing that this mechanism is well suited even for the large range of experimental conditions covered in our work. Furthermore, a reduced mechanism was developed and validated with our experimental data. The sarting point for the reduced mechanism is an already existing reduced reaction mechanism (UCB Chen) for methane, ethane, and propane oxidations. Additional reactions for the ethanol subsystem were taken from AramcoMech 3.0. They were chosen according to their importance in representing the experimental data in simulations with the detailed AramcoMech 3.0, resulting in four additional species and 27 additional reactions. The performance of the reduced mechanism was compared against experimental results from this work, from the literature, and against simulations based on the detailed reaction mechanism. The reduced mechanism shows only minor differences in the results compared to the detailed AramcoMech 3.0. It reproduces very well experimentally with determined ignition delay times of ethanol/argon/nitrogen/oxygen mixtures with inert gas/oxygen ratios between 3.76 and 7.52 (molar), equivalence ratios between 1 and 2 in a temperature range from 848 to 1313 K, and pressures from 10 to 40 bar. Furthermore, it can also predict with a high accuracy laminar burning velocities and species profiles in plug-flow reactors.