Jones et al. Nanoscale Research Letters 2011, 6:246 NANO EXPRESS Open Access Experimental study of combustion characteristics of nanoscale metal and metal oxide additives in biofuel (ethanol) Matthew Jones1, Calvin H Li1,2*, Abdollah Afjeh1, GP Peterson3 Abstract An experimental investigation of the combustion behavior of nano-aluminum (n-Al) and nano-aluminum oxide (nAl2O3) particles stably suspended in biofuel (ethanol) as a secondary energy carrier was conducted. The heat of combustion (HoC) was studied using a modified static bomb calorimeter system. Combustion element composition and surface morphology were evaluated using a SEM/EDS system. N-Al and n-Al2O3 particles of 50and 36-nm diameters, respectively, were utilized in this investigation | Jones et al. Nanoscale Research Letters 2011 6 246 http content 6 1 246 o Nanoscale Research Letters a SpringerOpen Journal NANO EXPRESS Open Access Experimental study of combustion characteristics of nanoscale metal and metal oxide additives in biofuel ethanol Matthew Jones1 Calvin H Li1 2 Abdollah Afjeh1 GP Peterson3 Abstract An experimental investigation of the combustion behavior of nano-aluminum n-Al and nano-aluminum oxide n-Al2O3 particles stably suspended in biofuel ethanol as a secondary energy carrier was conducted. The heat of combustion HoC was studied using a modified static bomb calorimeter system. Combustion element composition and surface morphology were evaluated using a SEM EDS system. N-Al and n-Al2O3 particles of 50-and 36-nm diameters respectively were utilized in this investigation. Combustion experiments were performed with volume fractions of 1 3 5 7 and 10 for n-Al and 1 3 and 5 for n-Al2O3. The results indicate that the amount of heat released from ethanol combustion increases almost linearly with n-Al concentration. N-Al volume fractions of 1 and 3 did not show enhancement in the average volumetric HoC but higher volume fractions of 5 7 and 10 increased the volumetric HoC by and respectively. N-Al2O3 and heavily passivated n-Al additives did not participate in combustion reactively and there was no contribution from Al2O3 to the HoC in the tests. A combustion model that utilized Chemical Equilibrium with Applications was conducted as well and was shown to be in good agreement with the experimental results. Introduction Metal additives have been utilized in solid propellants and fuels for some time and have been shown to dramatically increase combustion enthalpies and quality. In addition these metalized propellants offer increases in the overall energy density of the fuel and increase specific impulse and they effectively reduce the tank storage volume. In the current state-of-the-art .
