Photo-Induced combustion of Gaseous Fuels using Carbon Nanotubes as Ignitor Agents: driving and measuring systems, Characterizations

Aim of this work is to describe the electronic driving system and the entire experimental setup realized in order to photo-ignite a gaseous fuel/air mixture enriched with Multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with added metal impurities, makers of photo-ignition process. The realized electronic boards present different features such as variable flash brightness, pulse duration and high flash rate, allowing to fully characterize the combustion process under investigation. Varying the Xenon light source's parameters, the needed light energy/power to ignite MWCNT/Fe mixtures with different weight ratio was found. Experimental results show that lower energy thresholds are required with increasing MWCNTs amount respect to ferrocene. Then, the photo-induced ignition of CNTs mixed with nanoparticles was used in a properly realized experimental setup for triggering the combustion of different CNT-enriched air/fuel mixtures (CH 4 , Liquid Propane and H 2 ). The combustion tests triggered by MWCNTs/ferrocene photo-ignition show better performances (shorter ignition delays, higher peak pressure values and a higher fuel burning rate), for all used gaseous fuels and all tested air / fuel ratios, compared with those obtained by using a traditional spark plug.