Flame propagation of butanol isomers/air mixtures

An experimental and computational study was conducted on the propagation of flames of saturated butanol isomers. The experiments were performed in the counterflow configuration under atmospheric pressure, unburned mixture temperature of 343K, and for a wide range of equivalence ratios. The experiments were simulated using a recent kinetic model for the four isomers of butanol. Results indicate that n-butanol/air flames propagate somewhat faster than both sec-butanol/air and iso-butanol/air flames, and that tert-butanol/air flames propagate notably slower compared to the other three isomers. Reaction path analysis of tert-butanol/air flames revealed that iso-butene is a major intermediate, which subsequently reacts to form the resonantly stable iso-butenyl radical retarding thus the overall reactivity of tert-butanol/air flames relatively to the other three isomers. Through sensitivity analysis, it was determined that the mass burning rates of sec-butanol/air and iso-butanol/air flames are sensitive largely to hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and C1–C2 hydrocarbon kinetics and not to fuel-specific reactions similarly to n-butanol/air flames. However, for tert-butanol/air flames notable sensitivity to fuel-specific reactions exists. While the numerical results predicted closely the experimental data for n-butanol/air and sec-butanol/air flames, they overpredicted and underpredicted the laminar flame speeds for iso-butanol/air and tert-butanol/air flames respectively. It was demonstrated further that the underprediction of the laminar flame speeds of tert-butanol/air flames by the model was most likely due to deficiencies of the C4-alkene kinetics.