Combustion of emulsified and non-emulsified biofuels

Greener aviation and automotive industry are needed in the fight against climate change. Targets set out by key organizations call for emissions to be reduced. Biofuels present an innovative route to achieving such targets. The goal of this study is to investigate a sunflower oil-based biofuel in its non-emulsified and emulsified form. The aim is to create an experimental setup that can be used to carry out simple droplet combustion experiments, capable of igniting biofuel droplets. In addition to providing an understanding of emulsified and non-emulsified biofuels. The methodology outlines how a literature review was conducted to investigate the current experimental setup, which was used to help design a simple low cost set up for this research undertaking. The methodology also states that by analyzing the behavior and data collected during the testing phase, an insight into the behavior of such biofuels is obtained. The key parameters to be measured were the ignition delay times, the total combustion time period and the ignition temperatures. The observation of any phenomena was also to be noted. The results showed that ignition temperatures, ignition time delays and the total combustion time for an emulsified sunflower oil droplet are significantly lower compared to non-emulsified sunflower oil droplet. This is because of the presence of water in the emulsion which lowers the boiling temperature, enables phenomena such a micro-explosion and puffing to occur easily. As a result of such phenomena occurring, an improved and efficient combustion is completed. The impact of this work shows that by emulsifying biofuels in the form of vegetable oils, their properties to be used as a fuel are improved. There is great potential for use in the aviation sector with more research to be conducted on the emulsification of droplets.