Estimation of beech pyrolysis kinetic parameters by Shuffled Complex Evolution.

The pyrolysis kinetics of a typical biomass energy feedstock, beech, was investigated based on thermogravimetric analysis over a wide heating rate range from 5K/min to 80K/min. A three-component (corresponding to hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin) parallel decomposition reaction scheme was applied to describe the experimental data. The resulting kinetic reaction model was coupled to an evolutionary optimization algorithm (Shuffled Complex Evolution, SCE) to obtain model parameters. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study in which SCE has been used in the context of thermogravimetry. The kinetic parameters were simultaneously optimized against data for 10, 20 and 60K/min heating rates, providing excellent fits to experimental data. Furthermore, it was shown that the optimized parameters were applicable to heating rates (5 and 80K/min) beyond those used to generate them. Finally, the predicted results based on optimized parameters were contrasted with those based on the literature.

Composition of reaction intermediates for stoichiometric and fuel-rich dimethyl ether flames: flame-sampling mass spectrometry and modeling studies.

Molecular-beam synchrotron photoionization mass spectrometry and electron-ionization mass spectrometry are used for measurements of species mole fraction profiles for low-pressure premixed dimethyl ether (DME) flames with equivalence ratios ranging from near-stoichiometric conditions (Phi = 0.93) to fuel-rich flames near the limits of flat-flame stability (Phi = 1.86). The results are compared with predictions of a recently modified kinetic model for DME combustion [Zhao et al., Int. J. Chem. Kinet., 2008, 40, 1-18] that has been extensively tested against laminar flame speed measurements, jet-stirred reactor experiments, pyrolysis and oxidation experiments in flow reactors, species measurements for burner-stabilized flames and ignition delay measurements in shock tubes. The present comprehensive measurements of the composition of reaction intermediates over a broad range of equivalence ratios considerably extends the range of the previous experiments used for validation of this model and allows for an accurate determination of contributions of individual reactions to the formation or destruction of any given flame species. The excellent agreement between measurements and predictions found for all major and most intermediate species over the entire range of equivalence ratios provides a uniquely sensitive test of details of the kinetic model. The dependence on equivalence ratio of the characteristic reaction paths in DME flames is examined within the framework of reaction path analyses.

Computational singular perturbation analysis of two-stage ignition of large hydrocarbons.

Computational singular perturbation (CSP) analysis has been used to gain understanding of the complex kinetic behavior associated with two-stage ignition of large hydrocarbon molecules. To this end, available detailed and reduced chemical kinetics models commonly used in numerical simulations of n-heptane oxidation phenomena are directly analyzed to interpret the underlying fundamental steps leading to two-stage ignition. Unlike previous implementations of the CSP methodology, temperature is included as one of the state variables so that factors controlling ignition can be unambiguously determined. The analyzed models show differences in the factors contributing to the initial development and shutdown of the first ignition stage. However, during the second stage, both models show the importance of the degenerate branching decomposition of hydrogen peroxide, which contradicts some previous interpretations of this phenomenon.