Kinetics in Ammonia-Containing Premixed Flames and a Preliminary Investigation of Their Use as Fuel in Spark Ignition Engines

By using molecular beam sampling mass spectrometry, the structure of a NH3/H2/O2/Ar flat premixed flame burning at 50 mbar and with an equivalence ratio equals to one has been determined. Simulated mole fraction profiles have been obtained by using the kinetic mechanisms of Konnov (2000 Konnov , A. 2000 . Development and validation of a detailed reaction mechanism for the combustion of small hydrocarbons . Proc. Combust. Inst. , 28 , 317 . [Google Scholar]), Bian et al. (1990 Bian , J. 1990. Mécanisme de formation et de disparition des oxydes d'azote dans les flames. Ph.D. thesis, UCL, Belgium. [Google Scholar]), Lindstedt et al. (1994 Lindstedt , R.P. , Lockwood , F.C. , and Selim , M.A. 1994 . Detailed kinetic modelling of chemistry and temperature effects on ammonia oxidation . Combust. Sci. Tech. , 99 , 253 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and Smith (1999 Smith , G.P. , Golden , D.M. , Fenklach , M. , Moriatry , N.W. , Eiteneer , B. , Goldenberg , M. , Bowman , C.T. , Hanson , R.K. , Song , S. , Gardiner , W.C. , Lissianski , V. , and Qin , Z. 1999 . GRI-Mech 3.0. Available at: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/gri_mech/(accessed March 2008) . [Google Scholar]), but only the first two give results in agreement with the experimental ones. Furthermore, an initial study on a spark ignition engine has been performed to define which parameters must be applied to reach the best possible efficiency and reduce the formation of pollutants when ammonia is used as fuel in engines.