Chemical kinetic study of the oxidation of a biodiesel-bioethanol surrogate fuel: methyl octanoate-ethanol mixtures.

There is a growing interest for using bioethanol-biodiesel fuel blends in diesel engines but no kinetic data and model for their combustion were available. Therefore, the kinetics of oxidation of a biodiesel-bioethanol surrogate fuel (methyl octanoate-ethanol) was studied experimentally in a jet-stirred reactor at 10 atm and constant residence time, over the temperature range 560-1160 K, and for several equivalence ratios (0.5-2). Concentration profiles of reactants, stable intermediates, and final products were obtained by probe sampling followed by online FTIR, and off-line gas chromatography analyses. The oxidation of this fuel in these conditions was modeled using a detailed chemical kinetic reaction mechanism consisting of 4592 reversible reactions and 1087 species. The proposed kinetic reaction mechanism yielded a good representation of the kinetics of oxidation of this biodiesel-bioethanol surrogate under the JSR conditions. The modeling was used to delineate the reactions triggering the low-temperature oxidation of ethanol important for diesel engine applications.