Toward Elimination of Soot Emissions from Jet Fuel Combustion

Soot from jet fuel combustion in aircraft engines contributes to global warming through the formation of contrail cirrus clouds that make up to 56% of the total radiative forcing from aviation. Here, the elimination of such emissions is explored through N2 injection (containing 0–25 vol % O2) at the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental science & technology 2023-07, Vol.57 (28), p.10276-10283
Main Authors: Kelesidis, Georgios A., Nagarkar, Amogh, Trivanovic, Una, Pratsinis, Sotiris E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aircraft
Aircraft engines
Aviation
Aviation fuel
Cirrus clouds
Climate change
Combustion
Contrails
Density
Emissions
Exhaust emissions
Fuel combustion
Fuel sprays
Global warming
Hydrocarbons - analysis
Injection
Jet engine fuels
Occurrence, Fate, and Transport of Contaminants in Indoor Air and Atmosphere
Oxidation
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
Radiative forcing
Raman spectroscopy
Soot
Soot - analysis
Thermogravimetric analysis
Vehicle Emissions - analysis
X-ray diffraction
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Summary:Soot from jet fuel combustion in aircraft engines contributes to global warming through the formation of contrail cirrus clouds that make up to 56% of the total radiative forcing from aviation. Here, the elimination of such emissions is explored through N2 injection (containing 0–25 vol % O2) at the exhaust of enclosed spray combustion of jet fuel that nicely emulates aircraft soot emissions. It is shown that injecting N2 containing 5 vol % of O2 enhances the formation of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that adsorb on the surface of soot. This increases soot number density and volume fraction by 25 and 80%, respectively. However, further increasing the O2 concentration to 20 or 25 vol % enhances oxidation and nearly eliminates soot emissions from jet fuel spray combustion, reducing the soot number density and volume fraction by 87.3 or 95.4 and 98.3 or 99.6%, respectively. So, a judicious injection of air just after the aircraft engine exhaust can drastically reduce soot emissions and halve the radiative forcing due to aviation, as shown by soot mobility, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption, microscopy, and thermogravimetric analysis (for the organic to total carbon ratio) measurements.
ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.3c01048