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

可持续和安全的公路和航空运输燃料对西方和发展中经济体的活力都至关重要。需要新的替代燃料和供应，以应对石油储量下降和对剩余供应安全的担忧的全球挑战，以及更环保的燃料抵消二氧化碳排放的必要性。液体燃料为运输应用提供了最高的能量密度，合成液体燃料可以从可再生和非食品生物原料以及固体燃料和气态燃料供应中生产，为部分甚至全部取代剩余的化石燃料供应提供了令人兴奋的可能性。例如，国际上对合成喷气燃料的兴趣越来越大，费托工艺是合成喷气燃料生产的核心。南非是F-T进程的先驱者和国际领导者。如果要广泛使用这些新燃料并为其有效部署开发技术，就必须充分描述和了解这些新燃料的行为。这项建议涉及自燃和燃烧速度这两个至关重要且相互关联的燃料特性。与开普敦大学国际领先的南非合成燃料研究人员合作，将通过实验确定用于航空喷气燃料的合成煤油和用于道路运输的合成汽油的这些基本特性。该项目还包括使用实验研究产生的数据进行数学和计算建模，包括自动点火和气体运动如何耦合产生压力波和压力振荡，以及用于预测合成燃料性能和爆震特性的发动机循环模型。

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.