Exploring the combustion chemistry of a novel lignocellulose-derived biofuel: cyclopentanol. Part II: experiment, model validation, and functional group analysis

Abstract

In part I of this paper, the reaction kinetics and thermochemistry of cyclopentanol have been studied numerically. In this part, the ignition and combustion behavior of cyclopentanol are studied experimentally in a shock tube, a rapid compression machine, a combustion vessel, and a counterflow burner. Fundamental combustion properties, such as ignition delay times, laminar flame speeds, and extinction strain rates, are reported. All measurements probe a variety of initial conditions and provide an initial evaluation of the performance of cyclopentanol under different combustion modes. The experimental results are compared with those computed using the chemical mechanism presented in Part I. Reasonable agreement is observed. The controlling kinetics of cyclopentanol oxidation is explored considering various combustion modes. Moreover, cyclopentanol is compared to a variety of C5 fuels including cyclopentane, n-pentanol, and n-pentane with respect to their combustion characteristics in order to evaluate the impact of functional groups. The auto-ignition propensity of cyclopentanol is found to be lower than that of its paraffinic and linear counterparts, while the premixed flames of all these fuels propagate with approximately identical velocities at the investigated conditions.