Guo, Danyang, Xiao, Hua, Ma, Zhihao, Chen, Aiguo, Valera Medina, Agustin  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1580-7133, Li, Jun and Hao, Shuaishuai
2027.
Experimental and numerical study on the effects of dimethyl ether on the laminar burning velocity of Ammonia/Ethanol blended fuels.
Fuel: The Science and Technology of Fuel and Energy
431
(Part A)
, 141720.
10.1016/j.fuel.2026.141720
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Abstract
Ammonia/ethanol (NH3/C2H5OH) blends represent a class of potential low-carbon fuels. However, their poor low-temperature characteristics pose a major obstacle to direct application in conventional engines. To address this issue, dimethyl ether (DME) can be introduced as a highly reactive additive to enhance the combustion process. This work measured laminar burning velocities of ammonia/ethanol mixtures for different blend ratios (100/0, 80/20, 40/60 and 0/100) with various DME additions (0 %-40 %) at equivalence ratio of 0.7–1.4 using the heat flux method. Experimental results indicate that the enhancement effect of DME heavily relies on the initial ammonia/ethanol blending ratio. Taking the ammonia/ethanol ratio of 80/20 as a baseline, the addition of 20 % and 40 % DME increases the laminar burning velocities by 51.1 % and 93.7 %, respectively. However, when the initial ratio shifts to 40/60, these average growth rates significantly drop to 12.5 % and 26.7 %. An optimized kinetic model was developed to achieve more accurate predictions of the laminar burning velocities for ammonia/ethanol/DME blends. Kinetic analysis reveals that upon DME addition, key inhibiting reactions depend strongly on the equivalence ratio and mixture composition. Under fuel-rich conditions, the reactions governing laminar burning velocity enhancement shift from H–O to carbon-containing pathways. Furthermore, the introduction of DME induces the formation of abundant CH3 radicals during the early stages of combustion, substantially boosting the pool concentrations of core active radicals H and OH. The findings demonstrate that the promotion effect of DME primarily stems from its chemical kinetic effects rather than thermal effects.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Engineering |
| Additional Information: | RRS policy applied |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| ISSN: | 0016-2361 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 4 November 2026 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 11 October 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Nov 2026 10:30 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/190610 |
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