Effect of the n-butanol addition on propargyl radical issued from the combustion of benzene

Abstract

A global kinetic model was constructed from the combination of two existing and broadly validated kinetic schemes for benzene and butanol. Then the combined model, which was able to predict the combustion behavior of benzene-butanol fuel mixtures, was implemented in the PREMIX code in conjunction with CHEMKIN II in order to investigate the effect of n-butanol addition on the formation-depletion of propargil radical C₃H₃, which is known to be soot precursor, in fuel-rich n-butanol-benzene flames. It was treated the dependence of the soot precursor amounts on n-butanol percentage in the fuel mixture. Then was considered the causes of the variation of this species mole fractions with benzene replacement percentage by oxygenate additive. The principal objective of the current study was to obtain fundamental understanding of the mechanisms through which the oxygenate compound affects the soot precursor amounts. It was found that n-butanol-benzene fuel mixture displayed lower propargyl radical concentrations as compared to the pure benzene flame.