Kinetic modelling and experimental study of small esters: Methyl acetate and ethyl acetate

A detailed chemical kinetic mechanism comprising methyl acetate and ethyl acetate has been developed based on the previous work by Westbrook et al. [1]. The newly developed kinetic mechanism has been updated with new reaction rates from recent theoretical studies. To validate this model, shock tube experiments measuring ignition delay time have been conducted at 15 & 30 bar and equivalence ratio 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0. Another set of experiments measuring laminar burning velocity was also performed on a heat flux burner at atmospheric pressure over wide range of equivalence ratios [ ~ 0.7-1.4]. The new mechanism shows significant improvement in prediction of experimental data over earlier model across the range of experiments.

In this study, a detailed chemical kinetic model for methyl and ethyl acetate (Fig. 1) has been developed. This model is advanced from the mechanism proposed for laminar premixed flames by Westbrook and coworkers in 2009 [1]. Acetates studied in this work are both high RON fuels with suitable physical and chemical properties [Table 1] to be considered as potential fuels in advanced gasoline engines [4]. Shock tube experiments measuring ignition delay time have been conducted at 15 & 30 bar and equivalence ratio 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0. Another set of experiments measuring laminar burning velocity have also been performed on a heat flux burner at atmospheric pressure over wide range of equivalence ratios. The model developed in this work shows good agreement with ignition data and laminar burning velocity data across the temperature and equivalence ratio range respectively.