Sooting propensity and maturity of gasoline/anisole blends in a laminar coflow diffusion flame

Liquid oxygenated biofuels such as anisole have been used as additives, since they increase the octane number and improve spark-ignition engines' performance. In this study, the sooting propensity of a gasoline surrogate, anisole, and gasoline/anisole mixture is quantified by measuring bidimensional fields of soot volume fraction, temperature and radiative heat flux in a coflow laminar flame using well-established non-intrusive optical diagnostics. The maturity of soot particles is also measured using innovative multiwavelength line-of-sight attenuation and emission measurements. Experimental measurements shows that increasing anisole content in fuel mixture results in a greatly enhanced soot volume fraction, while overall temperature is slightly decreased. In addition, maps of soot maturity index are reported based on the spectral dependence of soot optical properties with the amount of immature soot. Mature soot is found near the outer edge of the flame for the three flames, and mature soot content was found to decrease with increased anisole addition to the fuel mixture. In addition, high temperature zones were found to correlate with the presence of more graphitic compounds within the soot particles for the investigated fuels. The comprehensive dataset reported in this study provides rich information for a better understanding of soot formation processes, and for the development and validation of soot models in coflow laminar diffusion flames using complex fuels of interest for practical applications.

Automated summary

This study quantifies the sooting propensity of gasoline surrogate, anisole, and gasoline/anisole mixture using non-intrusive optical diagnostics. The results show that increasing anisole content in the fuel mixture greatly increases soot volume fraction, while overall temperature slightly decreases.