Experimental and modeling study on ignition kinetics of ethyl methyl carbonate

Abstract

Ethyl methyl carbonate (EMC) is an essential electrolyte of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), and the spontaneous ignition of electrolyte is considered to be an important inducement for the thermal runaway (TR) combustion of LIBs. To better understand its ignition chemistry and combustion kinetics, the ignition delay times (IDTs) of ethyl methyl carbonate were measured by using a Rapid Compression Machine (RCM) over a wide range of temperatures (810–980 K), pressures (20 and 40 bar), equivalence ratios (φ = 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0), and a fuel concentration of 2 %, yielding results that are in substantial variance with those calculated with detailed kinetics in the literature over the entire range of conditions investigated. An improved chemical kinetic model was developed to simulate the ignition and combustion characteristics of EMC under intermediate-temperature region by employing the updated kinetic parameters. Results show that the overall performance of the present kinetics model is substantially improved with respected to the prediction of ignition delay times, intermediate species profiles, as well as laminar flame speeds across different temperature, pressure, and equivalence ratio conditions. Furthermore, sensitivity and pathway analyses show that the ignition chemistry of EMC is mainly controlled by retro-ene reaction and H abstraction reactions.