Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Sandia methane-air flame by using a biofuel

This article aims to study suitability and merits of employing a biofuel in methane-air jet flames for energy security and environmental sustainability purposes. A special biofuel (methyl decanoate, methyl 9-decenoate, and n-heptane) oxidation with 118 species reduced/skeletal mechanism and 837 reactions is combusted instead of methane. The biofuel was fed in the main jet inlet of the well-known Sandia flame D (SFD) while the hot pilot jet is still responsible for ignition. The open-source software OpenFOAM was used for simulating turbulent biofuel-air combustion. To check the accuracy of computational results, the system was initially validated with SFD experimental results and good agreements were found. After ignition, mean temperature distribution and species mean mass fraction at different distances in axial and radial directions were investigated. Results showed that the biofuel can be effectively used as an alternative to SFD not only for generating a reasonable temperature as methane does, but also for significantly reduction in principal greenhouse gas emissions.