A novel combustion system for liquid fuel evaporating and burning

To utilize sustainable biofuel, the current study proposes a novel combustion technique that directly burns liquid ethanol without a spray system. Two swirling air flows are induced by tangentially injected the gas from two concentric tubes at different stages. The liquid ethanol is fed by a liquid tank at the center. At the beginning methane flame assists in preheating the system to vaporize liquid ethanol and ignite the vapor. Thereafter methane is switched off, and liquid ethanol can be continuously vaporized through self-burning released heat. The heat and mass transfer processes are examined to illustrate such self-sustained burning–heating–evaporating system. The ethanol flow rate is gradually increased to provide different heat output. The flame structures, temperature distributions and pollutant emissions are carefully examined. The results show that the ethanol can be steadily burned to provide heat output between 0.7 and 2.5?kW. Generally a blue flame is obtained, and the NO_x and CO concentrations are ultralow. By increasing ethanol flow rate to exceed 8?mL/min, an unsteady, sooting flame is observed owing to incomplete evaporation and poor mixing. A parametric study is conducted to evaluate the influences of liquid tank position, flow rate and tip structure on the combustion characteristics. Additionally, an optimal operation condition is proposed. The current study provides a promising method to burn low-boiling liquid fuel in a clean, efficient and compact way.