Mid Term Report, 1.1.2003 - 30.6.2004, Combustion Fundamentals of PO and PO based fuels in lab scale equipment - EU Contract ENK5-CT-2002-00690 "COMBIO: A New Competitive Liquid Biofuel for Heating"

In this period, the drop tube furnace (DTF) and the single droplet combustion chamber (SDCC) experimental systems have been set up. The main features regarding the optical systems, droplets handling, gas and particulate matter sampling and analysis were defined. Different systems to ignite suspended droplets were tested. The procedure to obtain a stable spray of calibrated droplets of emulsions in the DTF was defined. A procedure to sample exhausts from the single droplet combustion chamber was established and gases and particulate matter analyses were carried out. The systematic study on the combustion behavior of emulsions and parent fuels in the SDCC was also initiated. Tests were carried out on ten pyrolysis oil (PO) based fuels plus a diesel oil: a) four emulsions (prepared by CSGI) of PO in light oil; b) the parent oils (provided by VTT and Fortum) and the diesel oil used to prepare the emulsions; c) a pure oil (supplied by VTT) and a mixture of the oil with ethyl alcohol; d) two Forestera oil samples (provided by Fortum). One of the Forestera samples was also tested after 1 year aging. The solid material, residual of the droplet's heating/vaporization, was examined by means of optical and scanning electron microscopy.