Effects of the stability of 2-methyl furan and 2, 5 dimethyl furan on the autoignition and combustion characteristics of a gasoline-like fuel

Abstract

Renewable liquid fuels have potential to greatly reduce the carbon footprint of the transportation sector while leveraging existing powertrain technologies and infrastructure. Prior studies identified a mixture of 2-methyl furan and 2, 5 dimethyl furan as one of the most promising components for formulating renewable gasoline fuel blends. Within the Co-Optima initiative, this furan mixture was used in the formulation of a custom renewable gasoline-like fuel, termed CB#2, that contains 40% of the furans in volume. Although CB#2 has demonstrated better performance than regular E10 gasoline for advanced compression ignition and boosted spark ignition engines, several concerns arose regarding stability of furans. Stability can be improved by adding antioxidant additives, but the effect of furans’ stability and the antioxidants on the ignition and combustion characteristics of gasoline fuels is unknown.In the present work, the effects of the stability of 2-methyl furan and 2, 5 dimethyl furan and the addition of butylhydroxytoluene on the autoignition and combustion characteristics of CB#2 were studied. Experimental measurements were performed using unstabilized CB#2 and CB#2 stabilized using butylhydroxytoluene (added in a concentration of 250 ppm to the furan species). From the test result, both fuel batches showed the same octane rating. Moreover, homogeneous charge compression ignition engine experiments at naturally aspirated and lean conditions showed that the two batches have the same autoignition reactivity and combustion characteristics. Therefore, fuel performance was not affected by the stability of the furans and the addition of butylhydroxytoluene at the concentration explored in this paper.