Collaborative Research in Energy with South Africa: Fundamental Characterisation of Autoignition and Flame Propagation of Synthetic Fuels

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Sustainable and secure fuels for road and air transport are essential to the vitality of both western and developing economies. Novel alternative fuels and supplies are required to meet the global challenges of declining oil reserves and concerns over the security of remaining supplies, as well as the enviromental imperative for greener fuels to offset CO2 generation. Liquid fuels offer the highest energy density for transportation applications and Synthetic liquid fuels, which can be produced from renewable and non-food bio feedstocks as well as solid and gaseous fuel supplies, offer exciting possibilities for partial or even total substitution of remaining fossil fuel supplies. There is a growing international interest in synthetic jet-fuels, for example, with the Fischer-Tropsch process central to their production. South Africa are pioneers and international leaders in the F-T process. The behaviour of these new fuels must be fully characterised and understood if they are to be widely employed and technologies developed for their effective deployment. This proposal relates to the vital and inter-related fuel characteristics of autoignition and burning velocity. In this collaboration with internationally leading South African synthetic fuels researchers at the University of Cape Town, these fundamental characteristics will be experimentally determined for both synthetic kerosenes, to be used in aviation jet-fuels, and synthetic gasolines for road transporation.The project also includes mathematical and computational modelling employing the data generated from the experimental studies, including on how autoignition and gas motion couple to generate pressure waves and pressure oscillations and engine cycle models to predict the performance and knock properties of synthetic fuels.