Toward Elimination of Soot Emissions from Jet Fuel Combustion.

ABSTRACT: Soot from jet fuel combustion in aircraft engines contributes to global warming through the formation of contrail cirrus clouds that make up to 56% of the total radiative forcing from aviation. Here, the elimination of such emissions is explored through N₂ injection (containing 0-25 vol % O₂) at the exhaust of enclosed spray combustion of jet fuel that nicely emulates aircraft soot emissions. It is shown that injecting N₂ containing 5 vol % of O₂ enhances the formation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that adsorb on the surface of soot. This increases soot number density and volume fraction by 25 and 80%, respectively. However, further increasing the O₂ concentration to 20 or 25 vol % enhances oxidation and nearly eliminates soot emissions from jet fuel spray combustion, reducing the soot number density and volume fraction by 87.3 or 95.4 and 98.3 or 99.6%, respectively. So, a judicious injection of air just after the aircraft engine exhaust can drastically reduce soot emissions and halve the radiative forcing due to aviation, as shown by soot mobility, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption, microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis (for the organic to total carbon ratio) measurements.

SUBMITTER: Kelesidis GA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10357563 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature