High-pressure oxidation of methane

Methane oxidation at high pressures and intermediate temperatures was investigated in a laminar flow reactor and in a rapid compression machine (RCM). The flow-reactor experiments were conducted at 700–900 K and 100 bar for fuel-air equivalence ratios (Φ) ranging from 0.06 to 19.7, all highly diluted in nitrogen. It was found that under the investigated conditions, the onset temperature for methane oxidation ranged from 723 K under reducing conditions to 750 K under stoichiometric and oxidizing conditions. The RCM experiments were carried out at pressures of 15–80 bar and temperatures of 800–1250 K under stoichiometric and fuel-lean (Φ=0.5) conditions. Ignition delays, in the range of 1–100 ms, decreased monotonically with increasing pressure and temperature. A chemical kinetic model for high-pressure methane oxidation was established, with particular emphasis on the peroxide chemistry. The thermodynamic properties of CH3OO and CH3OOH, as well as the rate constants for the abstraction reactions CH₃OOH + CH₃ = CH₃OO + CH4 and CH₃OH + CH₃ = CH₃O + CH4, were calculated at a high level of theory. Model predictions were evaluated against the present data as well as shock tube data (1100–1700 K, 7–456 bar) and flame speeds (1–10 bar) from literature. The model yielded satisfactory predictions for the onset temperature as well as for most major species upon ignition in the flow reactor, but the concentration of particularly CH3OH was severely underpredicted, indicating that further work is desirable on reactions of CH₃O and CH₃OO. Measured ignition delay times from the RCM tests were reproduced well by the model for high pressures, but underpredicted at 15 bar. For the shock tube and flame conditions, predictions were mostly within the experimental uncertainty. Prompt dissociation of HCO increased predicted flame speeds by up to 4 cm s⁻¹ but had little impact under flow reactor, RCM or shock tube calculations.