Supercritical Pyrolysis and Coking of JP-10 in Regenerative Cooling Channels

JP-10 is a potential endothermic hydrocarbon fuel (EHF) with a high energy density for the regenerative cooling technology of advanced aircrafts. In this work, pyrolysis and coking of JP-10 were experimentally studied using an electrically heated tube as a flowing reactor under supercritical conditions (4.5 MPa, 550–735 °C). For the supercritical pyrolysis, dicyclopentadiene, exo-TCD4e, and indane/indene were observed with relatively higher selectivity at low conversion, and the selectivities of typical products (ethene, propene, CPD, cyclopentene, and benzene) were lower compared with that under atmospheric pressure, possibly because of the enhanced bimolecular reactions. The heat sink of JP-10 was approximately 2.5 MJ/kg ascribed to the severe coke formation during the pyrolysis. Further characterizations on cokes indicated that the coke in the bulk fluid was about 70–170 times higher than that deposited on the wall, attributed to rapid formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) of pyrolysis products rather than the wall catalysis.