Authors: Yong Ren Tan, Maria Botero, Yuan Sheng, Jochen Dreyer, Rong Xu, Wenming Yang, and Markus Kraft*

• Smoke points of diesel/PODE_n and other oxygenates were measured in a diffusion flame.
• Sooting propensity of all the oxygenated blends exhibited similar results.
• Oxygen content has limited impact compared to dilution effect for soot suppression.
• 'Active' soot suppression species can explain the sooting tendency of the fuels.

In this paper, we investigate the sooting propensity of PODE_n/diesel blends. The sooting characteristics of PODE_n/diesel blends are determined using a standard ASTM D1322 smoke point lamp. The performance of PODE_n with different chain length (addition of -CH₂O- units) is benchmarked against other oxygenated soot suppression additives, including esters (methyl butyrate), carbonates (dimethyl carbonate) and alcohols (n-butanol). Soot reduction induced by the dilution of the aromatic fraction in the diesel fuel was found to have the biggest impact, followed by soot reduction by decreasing the hydrocarbon chain length and to a lesser extent increasing the oxygen content. The reason for the limited influence of oxygen content on soot suppression was further explored by examining the possible decomposition pathways and products of the different additives.

• This paper draws from preprint 194: Sooting characteristics of polyoxymethylene dimethyl ether blends with diesel in a diffusion flame
• Access the article at the publisher: DOI: 10.1016/j.fuel.2018.03.051

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