Microexplosion Kinetics of Alcohol-Based Emulsified Biodiesel Droplets Evaporated in High Temperature

Abstract

An alcohol-based emulsified fuel is formed by mixing ethanol, biodiesel, and water in different proportions. This fuel can be used in internal combustion engines to reduce fossil fuel consumption. In high-temperature environments, the microexplosion phenomenon of alcohol-based emulsified fuel can be observed directly. In this study, a high-temperature fuel evaporation test device was set up. The microexplosion process of alcohol-based emulsified fuel with varying water content (0%, 1%, 2%, and 3%) in different temperatures (773 K, 873 K, and 973 K) was studied by high-speed photography, and the data were analyzed by morphological treatment. To evaluate the microexplosion characteristics of alcohol-based emulsified fuel, some kinetic parameters—such as microexplosion delay, mean interfacial tension, number of bubbles, and mean microexplosion intensity—were proposed. The results show that the kinetic parameters put forward in this paper are reasonable for evaluating the microexplosion process. If the water content in the alcohol-based emulsified fuel is kept the same, the microexplosion delay decreases, while the mean interfacial tension increases with increasing temperature. If the evaporation temperature is kept the same, the microexplosion delay and the number of bubbles increase with the content of water increasing. Within the range of tested content of water and temperature, the mean microexplosion intensity of emulsion fuel is 0.05366 N·(m·s)−1 when the temperature is 973 K and the content of water is 3%, which is the largest.