Turbulent flame structure characteristics of hydrogen enriched natural gas with CO2 dilution

This paper investigated the hydrogen enriched methane/air flames diluted with CO₂. The turbulent premixed flame was stabilized on a Bunsen type burner and the two dimensional instantaneous OH profile was measured by Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF). The flame front structure characteristics were obtained by extracting the flame front from OH-PLIF images. And the turbulence-flame interaction was analyzed through the statistic parameters. The role of hydrogen addition as well as CO₂ dilution on the features of turbulent flame were revealed by those parameters. In this work, hydrogen fractions of 0, 0.2 and CO₂ dilution ratios of 0, 0.05 and 0.1 were studied. Results showed that hydrogen addition can enhance turbulent burning velocity ST/S_L through decreasing the scale of the finer structure of the wrinkled flame front, caused by the smaller flame instability scale. In contrast, CO₂ dilution decreased turbulent burning velocity S_T/S_L due to its inactive response to turbulence perturbation and larger flame wrinkles. For all flames, the probability density function (PDF) profile of the local curvature radius R shows a bias to positive value, resulted from the flame intrinsic instability. The PDF profile of R decreases with CO₂ dilution, while the value of local curvature radius corresponding to the peak PDF is larger. This indicates that larger wrinkles structure was generated due to CO₂ dilution, which leads to the decrease in S_T/S_L as a consequence. Hydrogen addition increases the flame volume and results in more intense combustion. CO₂ dilution has a decrease effect on flame volume for both X_H2 = 0 and X_H2 = 0.2 while the decrease is obvious at X_H2 = 0.2, Z_CO2 = 0.1. In all, hydrogen enrichment improves the combustion while CO₂ can moderate combustion. Therefore, adding hydrogen and CO₂ in natural gas can be a potential method for adjusting the combustion intensity in combustion chamber during the combustor design.     

铝空气电池废电解液生产超细氢氧化铝工艺条件研究

以铝空气电池的废电解液为原料, 采用种分法生产氢氧化铝。结果表明, 当种分时间为24 h、晶种系数为2%~4%时, 可生产出超细氢氧化铝, 且粒径分布宽度窄, 阻燃性能优良, 达到HG/T4530-2013氢氧化铝阻燃剂ATH-1一等品的要求。     

铜渣尾矿制备空心陶瓷微球及其表征

以铜渣尾矿为原料, 利用火焰喷枪熔射法制备空心陶瓷微球, 研究了淬熄距离对陶瓷微球形貌与性能的影响。结果表明, 淬熄距离为400 mm时, 制成的微球粒径分布均匀,直径15~30 μm, 经破碎确认为空心球。成球机理是铜渣尾矿粉末受热逐渐熔化过程中, 发气物质产生气体并合并, 当高温液滴喷射进入水中快速冷却凝固时, 液滴中气体无法逸出, 从而形成空心陶瓷微球。     

Polydimethylsiloxane wrapped aluminum diethylphosphinate for enhancing the flame retardancy of polyamide 6

Aluminum diethylphosphinate (ADP) was wrapped with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by a facile method to improve its hydrophobic properties. The morphology and properties of PDMS-modified ADP (PDMS-ADP) were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and water contact angle tests. The water contact angle of PDMS-ADP was increased from 126° to 151° as compared with that of ADP, which indicates that PDMS-ADP showed good hydrophobic properties. Then, ADP and PDMS-ADP were introduced into polyamide 6 (PA6) matrices to study the flame retardancy of the composites. The flammability of the PA6/ADP and PA6/PDMS-ADP composites was much lower than that of pure PA6. The composites PA6-1 (with the addition of 15 wt% ADP) and PA6-4 (with the addition of 12 wt% PDMS-ADP) could pass the UL-94 V-0 in the vertical burning test. Meanwhile, the peak heat release rates of PA6-1 and PA6-4 were 212 and 192 kW/m², with reductions of 67.3 and 70.4%, respectively, compared with pure PA6. These results indicated that the coating of PDMS could enhance the flame-retardant efficiency of ADP.     

Controllable layer-by-layer assembly based on brucite and alginates with the assistance of spray drying and flame retardancy influenced by gradients of alginates

With the aim of tailoring and controlling surface assembly, multifunctional flame retardants (FRs) were obtained based on depositing alginates and silane coupling agents on brucite via the spray-drying-assisted layer-by-layer assembly technique. The assembly was controllable in both structure and gradient mass. Two series of FRs were named CuFR1-3 and NiFR1-3 based on the assembly content of metal alginates. With the assistance of spray drying, good compatibility between FRs and ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) was obtained, resulting in better mechanical properties. Meanwhile, the FRs improved flame retardancy and smoke suppression when used in EVA composites. With 55 wt % loading, composites with CuFR3 and NiFR1 passed UL 94 V-0 rating, while those with brucite were not rated. The peak of heat release rate decreased by 51.7 and 49.3% while the residue increased by 9.8 and 11.9%, respectively. The FRs also reduced the smoke and CO production rates. For the two series of FRs, the relationship between FR efficiency and alginate contents is different. The CuFRs assembled more copper alginates and exerted better flame retardancy caused by lower catalytic graphitization. NiFRs exerted a higher catalyzing efficiency at low assembly content. However, at high assembly content, the catalytic graphitization effect would decrease by thermally oxidized degradation leading to excess nickel alginates. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2020 , 137, 47570.     

Two-dimensional modeling for physical processes in direct flame fuel cells

Commercial direct flame fuel cells (DFFC) need larger cell surface area for higher power output. In such cases, multi-dimensional effects play significant roles on cell performances. In this work, a two-dimensional numerical model is developed to illustrate physical behaviors associated with the multi-dimensional effects in DFFCs. It is revealed that DFFCs suffer from the negative consequences of non-uniform distributions of temperature, species and voltage in radial direction. Non-uniform distributions of temperature and species results in the decrease of current density at edge regions of DFFCs, owing to lower ionic conductivities and fuel species concentration. And the non-uniform voltage distribution in radial direction causes the decreases of current density at center regions of DFFCs due to the lower over-potential there. Therefore, current density distributions in electrolytes are likely to be M-shaped. The multi-dimensional effects become progressively important with increasing the size of solid oxide fuel cells. Comparing with the DFFC with a SOFC with small cell radius (6.5 mm), a DFFC with a SOFC with large cell radius (33.75 mm) has 25–30% lower maximum power density. We also reveal that cross-over electronic currents in samaria-doped-ceria electrolytes and fuel species starvation due to the secondary oxidation are dominant factors on the cell performance loss at high cell temperatures (∼1000 K).     

Experimental investigation on the self-acceleration of 10%H2/90%CO/air turbulent expanding premixed flame

The self-acceleration characteristics of a syngas/air mixture turbulent premixed flame were experimentally evaluated using a 10% H₂/90% CO/air mixture turbulent premixed flame by varying the turbulence intensity and equivalence ratio at atmospheric pressure and temperature. The propagation characteristics of the turbulent premixed flame including the variation in the flame propagation speed and turbulent burning velocity of the syngas/air mixture turbulent premixed flame were evaluated. In addition, the effect of the self-acceleration characteristics of the turbulent premixed flame was also evaluated. The results show that turbulence gradually changes the radius of the premixed flame from linear growth to nonlinear growth. With the increase of turbulence intensity, the formation of a cellular structure of the flame front accelerated, increasing the flame propagation speed and burning speed. In the transition stage, the acceleration exponent and fractal excess of the turbulent premixed flame decreased with increasing equivalence ratio and increased with increasing turbulence intensity at an equivalence ratio of 0.6. The acceleration exponent was always greater than 1.5.     

Experimental studies on characteristics of fire whirl in a vertical shaft

An internal fire whirl can be generated readily in a tall shaft model with appropriate gap width at one corner. Experimental study was carried out to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of an IFW and the corner gap width in a 9‐m‐tall vertical shaft model. The vertical shaft had a 2.1 m by 2.1 m square section with gasoline pool fire of different diameters burning inside. The gap width was varied to investigate its impact on fire whirl characteristics, such as flame development, swirling intensity, flame height, flame temperature, and heat release rate of the gasoline pool fire. Vigorous flame swirling motions were generated when the ratio of the gap width to the shaft section perimeter was within the range 0.16 to 0.21. From the flame streamline angle, it was observed that the swirling component was much stronger than buoyancy component near the bottom of burning region. The swirling component decreased and became roughly the same as buoyancy near the middle. Finally, it diminished to being much weaker than buoyancy near the top of the fire. These observations suggest that the Froude number Fr decreased from a large number to 1, and then continued to decrease to 0.     

A numerical investigation of hydrogen injection into noble gas working fluids

The thermodynamic efficiency of internal combustion engines is primarily dependent on the compression ratio and specific heat ratio of the working fluid. Due to a higher specific heat ratio, using a noble gas and oxygen instead of air can increase the thermal efficiency. The lack of nitrogen in the working fluid also eliminates NOx formation. In this study, the three-dimensional turbulent injection of hydrogen into a constant volume combustion chamber has been modeled and compared to mixtures of oxygen with nitrogen, argon, and xenon at different injection velocities. The results indicate that the hydrogen jet has a longer penetration length in nitrogen compared to argon and xenon. However, smaller penetration lengths lead to more complex jet shapes and larger cone angles. Combustion in a noble gas environment results in higher temperatures and OH radical concentrations, due in part to lower specific heats and the jet characteristics. Furthermore, mixedness is investigated using mean spatial variation and mean scalar dissipation. Hydrogen in argon shows a better mixing rate compared to nitrogen and xenon due to the higher diffusivity. The results indicate that reduction in mean spatial variation can lead to a shorter ignition delay.