A mechanistic model of fuel additive function and performance: Nanoparticle-fuel interactions in future marine fuels

海洋部门支持全球80%的贸易，并面临减少燃料排放的压力。其中一个步骤是降低燃油中的硫含量，IMO MARPOL 2020立法将燃油硫含量限制在0.5%（1）。随着这些法规越来越难以满足，该行业正在转向未来的燃料，将使用重质燃料油（HFO）或极低硫燃料油（VLSFO）作为与氨，甲烷或氢气混合的先导燃料。为了实现高燃料和发动机性能，正在考虑和设计纳米颗粒添加剂，以与杂质、不可燃产物相互作用并催化燃烧。目前，该项目的重点是了解纳米颗粒和沥青质之间的相互作用，沥青质是燃料中易于聚集和沉积的重质成分。防止沉积物对于避免发动机长期性能下降至关重要。动态光散射（DLS）被用来研究沥青质的聚集动力学，探索纳米颗粒尺寸和表面化学的影响，以防止沥青质簇形成的燃料。从这一见解，表面技术，如石英晶体微天平（QCM）和X射线光电子能谱（XPS）将被用来确定存款形成的过程中，以及这些纳米粒子可能会影响存款的组成和数量。随着这些技术的建立，该项目将开始探索VLSFO/HFO和氨的燃料混合物，以确定添加此类替代燃料如何影响纳米颗粒添加剂的功能和性能。进一步的进展将是采用高温微反应器和纳米颗粒-燃料相互作用的分子模型来引入更现实的条件，以了解这些纳米颗粒燃料添加剂的作用机制及其对发动机中存款形成的影响。

The marine sector supports 80% of global trade and is under pressure to reduce fuel emissions. One such step is to reduce the sulphur content in fuel oils, with the IMO MARPOL 2020 legislation limiting fuel sulphur content to 0.5 % (1). As these regulations get more challenging to meet, the sector is moving towards future fuels which will use heavy fuel oils (HFO) or very low sulphur fuel oils (VLSFO) as a pilot fuel mixed with ammonia, methane or hydrogen. To achieve high fuel and engine performance, nanoparticle additives are being considered and designed to interact with impurities, incombustible products, and to catalyse combustion. Currently the project is focused on understanding the interactions between nanoparticles and asphaltenes, a heavy component of fuel that is prone to aggregation and deposition. The prevention of deposits is crucial for avoiding performance deterioration in the engine over long timescales. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) is used to study the aggregation kinetics of asphaltenes, exploring the effects of nanoparticle size and surface chemistry to prevent asphaltene cluster formation in the fuel. From this insight, surface techniques such as quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) will be used to determine the process of deposit formation and how those nanoparticles may affect deposit composition and amount. With these techniques established the project will begin to explore fuel blends of VLSFO/HFO and ammonia, to determine how the addition of such alternative fuels impact the function and performance of the nanoparticle additives. A further progression will be to introduce more realistic conditions using a high-temperature micro-reactor and molecular modelling of nanoparticle-fuel interactions to understand the mechanism of action of these nanoparticle fuel additives and their effect on deposit formation in the engine.