Eliminating Soot Emissions from Jet Fuel Combustion

GEORGIOS A. KELESIDIS, Amogh Nagarkar, Una Trivanovic, Sotiris Pratsinis, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

     Abstract Number: 272
     Working Group: 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 60 % of the total radiative forcing from aviation. Here, the elimination of such emissions is explored through gas injection (containing 0 - 25 vol % O2) at the exhaust of enclosed spray combustion of jet fuel that emulates nicely aircraft soot emissions (doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2022.2070055). It is shown that injecting gas containing 5 vol % of O2 enhances the formation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that adsorb on the surface of soot. This increases its number density and volume fraction by 25 and 80 %, respectively. Further increasing the O2 concentration to 20 or 25 vol %, however, enhances oxidation (doi.org/10.1016/j.combustflame.2019.08.001) and nearly eliminates soot emissions from jet fuel spray combustion, reducing their total number density and volume fraction by 87.3 or 95.4 and 98.3 or 99.6 %, respectively! The reduction of soot emissions attained here is up to 60 % higher than that by blending jet fuel with alternative ones. So, injection of air just after the aircraft engine exhaust can reduce the radiative forcing from their emissions by 50 %.