Modeling of NO x Formation and Consumption during Oxidation of Small Alcohols

Krishna Prasad Shrestha, Lars Seidel, Thomas Zeuch, Fabian Mauss

Abstract

This work presents a newly developed kinetic mechanism extending our recent work (Shrestha et al. [1]) for the oxidation of methanol and ethanol and their fuel interaction with NO x chemistry in jet-stirred reactors, flow reactors, and burner-stabilized premixed flames. The work mainly focuses on fuel interaction with nitrogen chemistry and NO formation in laminar premixed flames. It is found that for methanol oxidation in jet-stirred reactor doping of the fuel blends with NO increase the reactivity of the system by increasing the net production of OH radicals. The increased amount of OH is formed via NO/NO 2 interconversion reaction channels NO+HO 2 ⇋NO 2 +OH, NO 2 +H⇋NO+OH, NO 2 +HO 2 ⇋HONO+O 2, followed by the thermal decomposition of HONO producing NO and OH. In burner-stabilized premixed flames studied here for methanol/air and ethanol/air, NO is mainly formed via the NCN route (CH+N 2 ⇋NCN+H) and minor contribution comes from the NNH route (NNN⇋N 2 +H).