Blending effect between n-decane and toluene in oxidation: a ReaxFF study

Abstract

We studied dependency of toluene oxidation-blended n-decane on blending ratio and temperature using the reactive molecular dynamics (RMD) simulations with the newly developed reactive force field (ReaxFF). Different initial reaction pathways of toluene were observed between pure and blended toluene, while that of n-decane showed little contrast. The differences in toluene oxidation paths are related to radical pool, which is largely influenced by H/C ratio. We analysed the influence of H/C ratio on the consumption of intermediate species, and found different dependencies of HCHO consumption on H/C ratio for different temperatures. The difference is attributed to the large active energy difference between the two main HCHO consumption reactions by OH and O₂. For the production part, the OH producing pathway was analysed carefully and shows H/C ratio influences OH production via H production and H abstract reactions. Our RMD simulations show that H/C ratio plays an important role in the oxidation of fuel.

Keywords:

• n-decane
• toluene
• ReaxFF
• H/C ratio
• lifetime
• H abstraction

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Rui Qin for the help on this article.