Effect of carbon-based nanoparticles on the ignition, combustion and flame characteristics of crude oil droplets

Gurjap Singh, Mehdi Esmaeilpour and Albert Ratner

Energy, 2020, vol. 197, issue C

Abstract: The use of in-situ burning (ISB) as a clean-up response in the event of an oil spill has generated controversy because of unburned hydrocarbons and products of incomplete combustion left behind on an ISB site. These substances threaten marine life, both in the ocean and on the ocean floor. Treating crude oil as a multicomponent liquid fuel, this manuscript investigates the effect of carbon-based nanomaterials, acetylene black (AB) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWNT), on the combustion and flame characteristics of crude sourced from the Bakken formation (ND, USA). Sub-millimeter droplets of colloidal suspensions of Bakken crude and nanomaterials at various particle loadings were burned, and the process was captured with CMOS and CCD cameras. The resulting images were post-processed to generate burning rate, ignition delay, total combustion time, and flame stand-off (FSR) ratio data for the various crude suspensions. A maximum combustion rate enhancement of 39.5% and 31.1% was observed at a particle loading of 0.5% w/w acetylene black nanoparticles and 0.5% w/w multi-walled carbon nanotubes, respectively. Generally, FSR for pure Bakken was noted as larger than for Bakken with nanoparticle additives. These results are expected to spur further investigations into the use of nanomaterials for ISB crude oil clean-ups.

Keywords: Crude oil; Bakken; Acetylene black; Carbon nanotube; Droplet combustion; Colloidal suspension; Carbon nanoparticle; In situ burning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220303340
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:197:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220303340

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117227

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().