TY - JOUR
T1 - Swirling Flame Combustion of Heavy Fuel Oil Blended with Diesel: Effect of Asphaltene Concentration
AU - Pei, Xinyan
AU - Tian, Hongyu
AU - Roberts, William L.
N1 - KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2022-09-14
Acknowledgements: The research was in collaboration with the Clean Combustion Research Center (CCRC) at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 52006122) and National Science and Technology Major Project (grant number 2019-III-0014-0058).
PY - 2022/8/24
Y1 - 2022/8/24
N2 - Heavy fuel oil has an energy density content comparable to distillate fuels but a very high viscosity that necessitates extra heating before spray combustion inside a boiler. Heavy fuel oil is also characterized by high asphaltenes, carbon residues, trace metals, such as vanadium and nickel, fuel-bound nitrogen, and sulfur. Asphaltenes are heavy polycyclic aromatic compounds with embedded heteroatoms and significantly affect the physico-chemical properties of heavy fuels; this makes them very difficult to burn and leads to the formation of large cenospheres (lightweight, inert, hollow spheres), due to an inefficient burning process. The primary goal of this study is to experimentally investigate the influence of the asphaltene concentration on the combustion of HFO under a swirling flame, finally reducing gaseous and solid pollution. We tested HFO samples containing asphaltene concentrations of 4, 6, 8, 16, and 24 wt.%, prepared by blending the light oil of diesel and pure asphaltenes with HFO. This work provides quantitative information about the effect of different asphaltene contents on the fuel properties of viscosity, density, heating value, thermogravimetry with air and N2, and swirling flame combustion characteristics, including the analysis of gaseous and solid particle emissions. The results indicated that the high asphaltene content in the fuel was the critical factor for the high viscosity and incomplete combustion and also increased the density of the fuel sample. Reducing the asphaltene content in HFO improves its spray characteristics and combustion performance and reduces the solid emissions containing sulfur and metal elements.
AB - Heavy fuel oil has an energy density content comparable to distillate fuels but a very high viscosity that necessitates extra heating before spray combustion inside a boiler. Heavy fuel oil is also characterized by high asphaltenes, carbon residues, trace metals, such as vanadium and nickel, fuel-bound nitrogen, and sulfur. Asphaltenes are heavy polycyclic aromatic compounds with embedded heteroatoms and significantly affect the physico-chemical properties of heavy fuels; this makes them very difficult to burn and leads to the formation of large cenospheres (lightweight, inert, hollow spheres), due to an inefficient burning process. The primary goal of this study is to experimentally investigate the influence of the asphaltene concentration on the combustion of HFO under a swirling flame, finally reducing gaseous and solid pollution. We tested HFO samples containing asphaltene concentrations of 4, 6, 8, 16, and 24 wt.%, prepared by blending the light oil of diesel and pure asphaltenes with HFO. This work provides quantitative information about the effect of different asphaltene contents on the fuel properties of viscosity, density, heating value, thermogravimetry with air and N2, and swirling flame combustion characteristics, including the analysis of gaseous and solid particle emissions. The results indicated that the high asphaltene content in the fuel was the critical factor for the high viscosity and incomplete combustion and also increased the density of the fuel sample. Reducing the asphaltene content in HFO improves its spray characteristics and combustion performance and reduces the solid emissions containing sulfur and metal elements.
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10754/680770
UR - https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/17/6156
U2 - 10.3390/en15176156
DO - 10.3390/en15176156
M3 - Article
SN - 1996-1073
VL - 15
SP - 6156
JO - Energies
JF - Energies
IS - 17
ER -