Experimental and data-driven chemical kinetic modeling study of alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) synthetic biofuel for sustainable aviation fuels

This work assesses the chemical ignition delay behavior of an isoparaffinic alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) fuel, one of the certified sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs). Chemical ignition delay measurements of ATJ were performed at a compressed pressure of PC = 2 MPa and three equivalence ratios (phi = 0.5, 1.0, & 1.3) in synthetic dry air, between 667 K and 1250 K. The unique chemical structures of isoalkanes result in high thermal decomposition rate, but low chemical oxidation reactivity. The new lumped mechanism (ARLMech-HC-ATJ) is developed using a genetic algorithm based on empirical ignition delays. The mechanism shows good performance over the temperature range from 667 K to 1250 K and varied equivalence ratios. Using the suggested mechanism, this study presents sensitivity analysis for the temperature range to understand chemical kinetics of ATJ fuel. The results show the impact of using ATJ modeling to design and optimize propulsion systems operating in the negative temperature coefficient (NTC) or low temperature chemistry (LTC) regime in the future and a methodology that can be adapted to other novel fuels.