Alcohol additives to enhance ammonia-methane combustion efficiency and reduce emissions: A reactive force field analysis

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Hauptverfasser: Shateri, Amirali, Yang, Zhiyin, Xie, Jianfei, Sherkat, Nasser
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Shateri, Amirali
Yang, Zhiyin
Xie, Jianfei
Sherkat, Nasser
author_facet Shateri, Amirali
Yang, Zhiyin
Xie, Jianfei
Sherkat, Nasser
contents Exploring the impact of alcohol additives on combustion and pyrolysis of ammonia/methane is of great importance in the pursuit of sustainable energy technologies. This work employs Reactive Force Field (ReaxFF) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the underlying mechanism of how ethanol and methanol additives affect reaction pathways, NOx emissions and bond energy characteristics in ammonia-methane pyrolysis and combustion processes. It shows that adding alcohols altered NOx formation pathways, reducing the diversity of NOx and shifting the equilibrium toward simpler NOx such as NO and NO2. At 2,000 K, alcohol blends, particularly methanol, demonstrated a notable reduction in NO2 formation. At 3,000 K, both ethanol and methanol suppressed NO production, but the influence of methanol was stronger. Nitric acid production, HNO3, was present at lower temperatures but became negligible at higher temperatures because of the thermal breakdown of the higher-order NOx. These trends confirm that alcohol additives realize a probable role in moderating NOx emissions and stabilizing reaction pathways. The pyrolysis in modified reaction pathways, which facilitated the decomposition of ammonia and methane in these blends, affected the formation of intermediate species, leading to the reduction in peak emissions. In addition, methanol and ethanol showed significant impacts on hydrogen bond energies of the mixture, especially important building block radicals encouraging higher complexity pathways. By leveraging a computationally robust and scalable methodology, this study not only advances a fundamental understanding of alcohol-enhanced ammonia/methane combustion but also informs strategies to optimize these mixtures for practical use in modern propulsion systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_06314
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Alcohol additives to enhance ammonia-methane combustion efficiency and reduce emissions: A reactive force field analysis
Shateri, Amirali
Yang, Zhiyin
Xie, Jianfei
Sherkat, Nasser
Chemical Physics
Exploring the impact of alcohol additives on combustion and pyrolysis of ammonia/methane is of great importance in the pursuit of sustainable energy technologies. This work employs Reactive Force Field (ReaxFF) molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate the underlying mechanism of how ethanol and methanol additives affect reaction pathways, NOx emissions and bond energy characteristics in ammonia-methane pyrolysis and combustion processes. It shows that adding alcohols altered NOx formation pathways, reducing the diversity of NOx and shifting the equilibrium toward simpler NOx such as NO and NO2. At 2,000 K, alcohol blends, particularly methanol, demonstrated a notable reduction in NO2 formation. At 3,000 K, both ethanol and methanol suppressed NO production, but the influence of methanol was stronger. Nitric acid production, HNO3, was present at lower temperatures but became negligible at higher temperatures because of the thermal breakdown of the higher-order NOx. These trends confirm that alcohol additives realize a probable role in moderating NOx emissions and stabilizing reaction pathways. The pyrolysis in modified reaction pathways, which facilitated the decomposition of ammonia and methane in these blends, affected the formation of intermediate species, leading to the reduction in peak emissions. In addition, methanol and ethanol showed significant impacts on hydrogen bond energies of the mixture, especially important building block radicals encouraging higher complexity pathways. By leveraging a computationally robust and scalable methodology, this study not only advances a fundamental understanding of alcohol-enhanced ammonia/methane combustion but also informs strategies to optimize these mixtures for practical use in modern propulsion systems.
title Alcohol additives to enhance ammonia-methane combustion efficiency and reduce emissions: A reactive force field analysis
topic Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06314