Understanding the low-temperature chemistry of 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene

1,2,4-trimethylbenzene is an important representative aromatic component of gasoline/diesel/jet fuels and thus it is necessary to understand its low-temperature chemistry. In this paper, ignition delay times (IDTs) of both 1,2,4-trimethylbenzene (124TMB) and its blends with n-heptane were measured at engine-like conditions using both a high-pressure shock tube and a rapid compression machine for fuel in ‘air’ mixtures at pressures of 10 and 30 atm and at temperatures in the range 600 – 1100 K. The experiments in this study show for the first time that 124TMB presents a two-stage ignition behavior at engine relevant conditions. Blending n-heptane with 124TMB can significantly increase mixture reactivity at temperatures below 1000 K. A new detailed mechanism has been developed to simulate the experimentally measured IDT data. The mechanism can capture well the two-stage ignition behavior as well as the ignition delays at different pressures, equivalence ratios over a wide temperature range, for both pure fuels and their blended mixtures. Flux analyses show that the benzylic radicals (formed via H-atom abstraction from the methyl groups ortho-sites on 124TMB) can add to O₂ forming RȮ₂ radicals, which can isomerize to Q˙OOH by intramolecular H-atom transfer from the ortho- methyl group and these Q˙OOH radicals undergo a second addition to O₂. This is analogous to the chain branching reaction pathways of alkanes. The chain branching reaction pathways are responsible for the first-stage heat release of 124TMB. The competitions between chain branching and both chain propagating and chain termination reaction pathways lead to a less pronounced negative temperature coefficient (NTC) behavior for 124TMB oxidation, compared to two-stage ignition behavior observed for alkanes and other fuels.