Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Multicomponent evaporation model for pure and blended biodiesel droplets

in high temperature convective environment
Kaushik Saha, Ehab Abu-Ramadan, Xianguo Li ⇑
Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Department, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Biodiesel and more often its blends have been extensively used to mitigate the dependence on fossil fuel
Received 15 November 2010 and the greenhouse gas emissions. However, a good understanding of the impact of the difference in the
Received in revised form 16 May 2011 thermophysical properties of biodiesel and its blends from those of petroleum diesel is required to reap
Accepted 21 May 2011
the benefits of biodiesel utilization. In this study a multicomponent evaporation model has been devel-
oped for pure and blended biodiesel droplets to investigate their evaporation characteristics in high tem-
perature convective environment as encountered in practical combustion systems; and it is validated
Keywords:
through a comparison with experimental results. The vaporization characteristics of pure diesel, pure
Multicomponent droplet evaporation
Biodiesel
biodiesel fuel droplets as well as the effect of mixing them in different proportions (B20 and B50) are pre-
Alternative fuel sented. The results reveal that biodiesel droplets evaporate at a slower rate than the diesel droplets
Diesel–biodiesel blends because of biodiesel’s relatively low vapor pressure. Consequently, the blending of diesel fuel with small
proportions of biodiesel results in an increase in the evaporation timescale of the blended fuel droplets.
Diffusion in the liquid phase is observed to be the rate controlling factor for blended droplet vaporization.
The possibility of internal gasification for blended droplets is also investigated. A droplet with higher
quantity of diesel is more prone to undergo internal gasification but micro-explosion is not likely to occur
at atmospheric pressure.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Concerns of environmental degradation and depleting fossil fuel
reserves have fuelled the use of alternative renewable energy
(fuels). The most promising alternatives to the conventional diesel
fuel in traditional combustion engines are renewable biodiesel fuels
because of their potential carbon neutral cycle and hence the ability
to reduce the carbon footprint [1,2]. However, biodiesel fuels are
characterized by physical properties that are distinctly different
from diesel fuels. Renewable biological resources, such as animal
fats or vegetable oils, are characterized by viscosity that is about
10–20 times higher than the viscosity of conventional diesel fuels.
Processing of raw oils to obtain the proper ‘biodiesel’ fuel, i.e.
mono-alkyl esters, reduces the viscosity by only half of its original
amount [3]. Other than the liquid phase viscosity biodiesel and die-
sel are very much different in terms of their vapor pressure; and
diesel is much more volatile than biodiesel. The properties of biodie-
sel depend greatly on the different raw materials used for biodiesel
production and studies have been done to explore the effects of dif-
ferent raw materials [4–8]. In order to give an impression about the
property differences of diesel and biodiesel representative values of
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: x6li@uwaterloo.ca (X. Li).
diesel and biodiesel properties at 300 K are presented in Table 1. Dif-
ferences in physical properties affect the evaporation process and
consequently the combustion efficiency of the injected fuels inside
the combustion engine. For example, biodiesel fuels are less volatile
than diesel fuel because of the differences in vapor pressure be-
tween the two fuel types.
At the current stage, biodiesel is blended with conventional die-
sel fuel to deal with the issues arising from the relatively high vis-
cosity, high freezing point, and high cloud and pour points of
biodiesel fuels. For example, the U.S. Energy Policy Act (EPA) rec-
ommends the implementation of blended B20 fuel, which contains
20% volume fraction of pure biodiesel, for use in automotive appli-
cations. Blended fuels are identified based on the biodiesel volume
fraction, with B100 designating pure biodiesel fuel meeting the
requirements of the American Society for Testing and Materials
(ASTM) standard D6751 [9]. In particular, the trend is to decrease
the permissible conventional diesel fraction in automotive fuels
[10,11]. However, increasing the biodiesel fraction in fuel blends
requires detailed numerical and experimental studies in high pres-
sure and high temperature combustion environments to capture
the implications of the difference in physical properties between
biodiesel and diesel fuels on engine design and performance.
Given the practical value of biodiesel fuels, both computational
and experimental studies have been carried out concerning the

0306-2619/$ - see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.05.034
72 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79

Nomenclature

Ar averaging parameter ScL liquid phase Schmidt number

BM mass transfer number T time, s
BH heat transfer number T temperature, K
CD drag coefficient Ts surface temperature, K
C p;g average film specific heat, J/(kg K) Tb boiling temperature, K
CF skin friction coefficient Tc droplet center temperature, K
Did binary species diffusion coefficient in the liquid phase, T1 ambient temperature, K
m2/s Tref reference temperature, K
Dim binary species diffusion coefficient of ‘i’ th species in the U droplet velocity, m/s
vapor phase in the gas mixture, m2/s U1 ambient fluid velocity, m/s
d0 initial diameter Us liquid phase surface velocity, m/s
FM, FH correction factors for film thickness Urel droplet relative velocity, m/s
ji,Ls species flux in the liquid phase at the droplet surface, Xt effective thermal diffusivity correction factor
kg/s Xd effective species diffusivity correction factor
ji,vs species flux in the vapor phase at the droplet surface, Ydiesel mass fraction of diesel in liquid phase
kg/s Yi,vs species vapor mass fraction at the droplet surface
kL liquid phase thermal conductivity, W/(m K) Yi,v1 species vapor mass fraction at infinity
Li enthalpy of vaporization of ‘i’ th species, J/kg Yi,Ls species liquid mass fraction at the droplet surface
Lei,v species specific gas phase Lewis number Yi,L species liquid mass fraction at any radial location inside
m_ total vaporization rate, kg/s the droplet
m_i species specific vaporization rate, kg/s
Pr Prandtl number Greek symbol
PeL liquid phase heat transfer Peclet number aL liquid thermal diffusivity, m2/s
Q_ l sensible heat entering the droplet, W lg ambient gas viscosity, Pa s
r local radial co-ordinate lL liquid phase viscosity, Pa s
rs instantaneous droplet radius, m q1 ambient gas density, kg/m3
Re droplet Reynolds number qL droplet density, kg/m3
ReL liquid phase droplet Reynolds number

effects of physical properties of various types of biodiesel fuels on
the atomization and combustion processes in combustion engines
(see e.g. [12–21]). Kim et al. [12] analyzed the atomization and
evaporation characteristics of two types of alternative fuels: bio-
diesel and dimethyl ether, in a high pressure injection system.
Um and Park [13] implemented a reduced reaction mechanism to
study the effect of biodiesel blending ratio on combustion and
emission characteristics of a single cylinder engine. Kegl [14] ana-
lyzed the effect of biodiesel obtained from rapeseed oil on engine
performance and emission characteristics with special emphasis
on extent of NOX emissions. Gogoi and Baruah [15] tested Koroch
seed oil as biodiesel and used blended fuels with different propor-
tions of biodiesel and observed that B30 (30% by volume) is most
suitable in the diesel engines. A detailed reaction mechanism
was recently implemented by Ren et al. [16] to study the effect
of both physical and chemical properties of biodiesel fuels on the
combustion and pollutant formation processes in direct injection
engine. Rao et al. [17] carried out combustion analysis in diesel en-
gine using jatropha biofuels and observed that jatropha and its
blends have lower tailpipe emissions (except NOX) compared to
diesel fuels. Puhan et al. [18] used mahua esters as biodiesel and
did an experimental study in a 4-stroke diesel engine and found
that mahua esters can achieve overall lower emissions compared
to diesel (including NOX). Balusamy et al. [19] studied the perfor-
mance of thevetia peruviana seed oil in diesel engine environment
Table 1
Fuel properties at 300 K [21].
Properties Diesel Biodiesel B 20
Vapor pressure (Pa) 1000 1 N/A
Liquid density (kg/m3) 822.7 877.2 835.7
Liquid viscosity (Ns/m2) 0.00212 0.00694 0.00333
and found that it has lower emission characteristics with respect to
diesel and its performance is comparable to conventional fossil
fuels. Aiming at gaining fundamental understanding of the differ-
ences between diesel and biodiesel fuels, Barata [20] carried out
a comparative theoretical study of dispersion and evaporation pro-
cess of both pure diesel and pure biodiesel droplets using rapid
mixing approach. However, the rapid mixing approach cannot de-
scribe the temporal evolution of spatial variations of species and
temperature within the liquid droplet. This requires a modeling
approach that considers the effect of species and temperature gra-
dient within the droplet. To address this issue, Saha et al. [21]
implemented the 2-D vorticity approach, originally proposed by
Abramzon and Sirignano [22], to analyze the effect of blending ra-
tio on the evaporation characteristics of blended fuel droplet sub-
jected to high temperature convective environment. However, they
neglected the vapor phase properties of the alternative fuels and
only used air properties for calculating the reference film proper-
ties for gas phase analysis.
The vapor phase properties should be taken into account for
modeling of droplet vaporization as the properties of vapor phase
can be of considerable significance during the final stage of evapo-
ration as the quantity of vapor at the droplet surface is of consid-
erable amount at that stage. Noticeable differences between the
physical properties of diesel and biodiesel fuels exist for both the
liquid and vapor phases. In particular, significant dissimilarities be-
tween the properties of the two fuel types are reported in terms of
gas phase diffusivity, vapor pressure, liquid phase viscosity and va-
por phase viscosity [23,24]. In most practical cases for a multicom-
ponent diesel droplet the vapor phase diffusivities of constituent
B 50
species are of the same order of magnitude and hence researchers
N/A have assumed that the vapor phase diffusivities are the same
852.4
for every species and developed their model based on that
0.00482
assumption [21,22]. However significant variations in the vapor
 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79
phase diffusivities between the two fuel types (diesel and biodie-
sel) violate the assumption of equality of vapor phase diffusivities.
Thus it is necessary to develop a comprehensive multi-component
droplet vaporization model, which addresses the complexities aris-
ing from inequalities in physical properties. Developing a validated
multicomponent droplet vaporization model capable of describing
the vaporization process of pure and blended biodiesel fuel drop-
lets in high temperature convective environment is the main
objective of the current study.
The case of a single droplet vaporizing in a stagnant environ-
ment is a classical heat and mass transfer problem that have been
extensively studied since late 1950’s [22,25–36]. Abramzon and
Sirignano [22] compared the four existing contemporary ap-
proaches of droplet vaporization; namely (i) rapid mixing (no tem-
perature and concentration gradient within the droplet), (ii)
diffusion limit (1-D model which assumes only radial variation of
temperature and concentration within the droplet), (iii) vortex
model (2-D model which takes into account the radial as well as
angular variation of temperature and concentration in the droplet),
and (iv) effective diffusivity model (modified 1-D model which en-
hances the diffusivity by a correction factor calculated based on the
heat and mass transfer Peclet numbers to consider the recircula-
tion effect). Their results showed that the effective diffusivity mod-
el has the capability of predicting the surface temperature, the
droplet radius and mass vaporization rate as accurately as the de-
tailed vortex model [22]. Given the computational advantage of the
effective diffusivity approach over the 2-D vortex approach, the
effective diffusivity model becomes the standard technique in
droplet vaporization [22,36]. The extensive experimental and
numerical analysis of droplet vaporization by Renksizbulut and
Yuen [33,34] resulted in a detailed understanding of the droplet
evaporation phenomenon. Furthermore, they deduced an average
Nusselt number correlation for the heat transfer in the gaseous
film surrounding the droplet [34]. Additionally Renksizbulut and
Haywood came up with a validated correlation for the drag coeffi-
cient of a liquid droplet evaporating in a convective environment
[35].
Extending the single component droplet vaporization model to a
droplet containing more than one species is a complex task urgently
required by various industrial applications beyond biodiesel and
diesel blends vaporization process. In an effort to simplify the math-
ematical complexities associated with multi-component vaporiza-
tion, Sirignano [36] assumed that the gas phase diffusivities of all
the species present in a multicomponent droplet are equal.
Although this assumption simplifies the calculations for total and
species specific mass vaporization rates, it is not applicable for
blended fuel droplets because of the noticeable variations between
the vapor phase diffusivities of diesel and biodiesel [23,24]. Ren-
ksizbulut et al. [37] proposed a semi-analytical approach for multi-
component droplets at intermediate Reynolds numbers. Since
Renksizbulut et al. [37] did not assume the equality of gas phase dif-
fusivities of different species in the semi-analytical approach, the
proposed technique for the calculation of total and species specific
mass vaporization rates can be applied in cases of inequality of
gas phase diffusivities as experienced in biodiesel and diesel blends.
The computational advantage of the semi-analytical approach
makes it more suitable for spray calculations. However, the solution
procedure proposed by Renksizbulut et al. [37] requires the use of
complicated iterative procedures because of the coupling between
the vapor phase properties and the average liquid phase properties
to decrease the computational cost in order to be suitable for spray
analysis. However, his approach [37] does not reveal the droplet
internal evolution of temperature and mass fraction. Modifications
are required before the approach proposed in [37] can be applied for
internal analysis of liquid phase of a multi-component droplet.
73
Another critical issue that should be addressed when dealing
with multicomponent droplets consisting of species of varying de-
gree of volatilities is the phenomena of internal-gasification and
the subsequent possibility of micro-explosion [38]. Internal-gasifi-
cation occurs due to the heating of the entrapped components of
higher volatilities beyond their local boiling point resulting in sig-
nificant swelling in the droplet size. Further heating may result in
the sudden fragmentation or micro-explosion of the droplet with
the internal pressure buildup. Recently Sirignano and Wu [39]
demonstrated that based on Raoult’s Law (equilibrium statement
of liquid vapor interface for multicomponent droplets), the actual
boiling point of individual droplet components in a multicompo-
nent droplet is exponentially correlated with its local concentra-
tion. Given the differences in volatilities between diesel and
biodiesel liquids, the possibilities of internal gasification should
be considered.
The present study aims at analyzing the vaporization character-
istics of pure and blended biodiesel droplet in high temperature
convective environment. Achieving this objective requires the
development and implementation of a multicomponent droplet
vaporization model to address the issues arising due to the nature
of the applied problem. The developed multicomponent vaporiza-
tion model can be best described as a combination of the approaches
by Abramzon and Sirignano [22] and Renksizbulut, et al. [37]. In par-
ticular, the gas phase calculations of the developed model follows
the gas phase calculation outlined by Abramzon and Sirignano
[22]. To avoid the simplistic equal diffusivity assumption of Abram-
zon and Sirginano [22], the approach of Renksizbulut et al. [37] for
calculating the species specific and total mass vaporization rate is
adopted in the developed model. Combining both approaches is
necessary to take into account the critical issue of inequality of
gas phase diffusivity of diesel and biodiesel vapors, and proper drag
coefficient correlations while minimizing the computational
requirements. The reliability of the modified approach should be as-
sessed and hence the modified approach will be validated with
experimental data in the validation section. The results section will
delve into the characterization of the blended biodiesel fuels in the
high temperature convective environment.
2. Modeling approach
2.1. Assumptions
Theoretical description of the vaporization mechanism of diesel,
biodiesel, and blended droplets in a convective heated environ-
ment is presented in this section. The fuel droplet is described by
a spherical bi-component droplet with spatially uniform initial
temperature and composition. Maintaining the spherical symme-
try of the droplet reduces the mathematical model to a one dimen-
sional transient problem. The heated environment is represented
by a hot gas mixture with uniform temperature, pressure, and spe-
cies of T1, P1, and Yi,1, respectively. Physically, the heat trans-
ported from the hot environment to the droplet is used to heat
up the droplet interior and vaporize its components. In addition
to spherical symmetry, the outlined mathematical model is based
on the following assumptions:
(1) the gas mixture flow is one dimensional and the initial drop-
let velocity is parallel to the gas flow direction for simplicity,
(2) the gas phase surrounding the droplet is in a quasi-steady
state since the thermal diffusivity of the gas phase is much
higher than that of the liquid phase,
(3) the surrounding gas mixture is insoluble in the liquid drop-
let, which leads to one way diffusion, or the so-called Stefan
flow,
74 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79

(4) both liquid and gaseous phases at the droplet surface are at Finally the total mass vaporization rate can be expressed as,
thermodynamic equilibrium, P
j
(5) secondary effects such as Soret and Dufour effects and pres- _ ¼
m Pi;v s : ð10Þ
1  Y i;v s
sure diffusion are negligible.
It should be noted here that if the droplet contains N species,
2.2. Droplet dynamics the gas phase will contain at least N + 1 species to account for
the air surrounding the droplet. It is assumed that air is not going
The injected droplet motion and surface regression rate can be to diffuse into the liquid phase.
expressed as [22], The energy balance at the droplet surface can be shown as
( )
  C p;g ðT 1  T s Þ X
dU 3 q Q_ L ¼ m
_  _ i Li :
m ð11Þ
¼ C D 1 jU 1  UjðU 1  UÞ; ð1Þ BH
dt 8r s qL i

and For calculating the sensible heat flux and the species flux at the
droplet surface, the Nusselt and the Sherwood number correlations
@r s _
m are implemented. For a solid sphere the correlations proposed by
¼ ð2Þ Clift et al. [41] are used here, such that
@t 4pqL r2s
The properties of the droplet like liquid phase density are up- Nuo ¼ 1 þ ð1 þ RePrÞ1=3 f ðReÞ; ð12Þ
dated at each time step and the details are provided in the solution
procedure section. The drag coefficient in Eq. (1) is estimated using Sho;i ¼ 1 þ ð1 þ ReSci Þ1=3 f ðReÞ; ð13Þ
the empirical correlation proposed by Renksizbulut and Heywood 0.077
where f(Re) = 1 for Re 6 1 and f (Re) = Re for Re 6 400. For a
[35] because it accounts for the variation of thermophysical prop-
vaporizing liquid droplet, the Nusselt and Sherwood numbers pre-
erties in the gas phase by including a correction factor based heat
sented in Eqs. (12) and (13) are modified by a correction factor
transfer number, BH.
for film thickness
 
24 6 F i ¼ ð1 þ Bi Þ0:7 : ð14Þ
CD ¼ þ pffiffiffiffiffiffi þ 0:4 ð1 þ BH Þ0:2 ; ð3Þ
Re 1 þ Re
The modified Nusselt and Sherwood numbers are then ex-
where Re ¼ 2r s q1 jU 1  Uj=lF is the droplet Reynolds number. The pressed in the following form as shown by Renksizbulut et al. [37],
gas phase properties of the surrounding gaseous film are estimated Nu ¼ maxð2; Nuo =F H Þ; ð15Þ
at a reference temperature and for a reference concentration of the
species. 
Shi ¼ maxð2; Sho;i =F M Þ: ð16Þ
T ref ¼ T s þ Ar ðT 1  T s Þ; Y i;ref ¼ Y i;v s þ Ar ðY i;v 1  Y i;v s Þ ð4Þ The reason for expressing the corrected Nusselt and Sherwood
numbers in the above form is to account for the case of negligible
where Ar = 1/3, as recommended by Yuen and Chen [40]. convection surrounding the droplet i.e. the steady state values of
two for both numbers.
2.3. Gas phase Considering the energy balance at the droplet surface, the heat
transfer number is expressed as the ratio between the net energy
For the equilibrium statement at the liquid vapor interface of available from the ambient and the energy utilized in droplet heat-
the droplet, Raoult’s law is implemented. In gas phase analysis ing (sensible heat) and evaporating of the droplet’s volatile compo-
the two most important parameters are the heat transfer number nents, such that
BH, and global mass transfer number BM, which are defined as,
X
N 
Shi ðY i;v s  Y i;v 1 Þ
BH ðNuo =F H Þ ¼ PN : ð17Þ
C p;g ðT 1  T S Þ 1 Lei;v ð1  1 Y i;v s Þ
BH ¼ P ; ð5Þ
QL ð m1 L Þ
m
þ m i An iterative procedure to solve for BH and FH is requried. The ini-
and tial guess to calculate FH is BH = BM. A new value for BH is then cal-
P P culated from Eq. (17). The iteration is repeated until the absolute
i Y i;v s
 Y difference between the values from two successive iterations goes
BM ¼ P i i;v 1 ; ð6Þ
1  i Y i;v s below e = 1.0E-04. After convergence is achieved, the sensible heat
penetrating into the liquid phase is calculated from Eq. (11).
where
X
_ ¼
m _i
m ð7Þ 2.4. Liquid phase

is the total mass vaporization rate. The governing equations for the effective diffusivity approach
The species specific mass vaporization rate can be estimated (modified 1-D model including recirculation) for energy and spe-
using the species conservation equation, cies in the liquid phase in terms of moving boundary of the droplet
_ i ¼ mY
_ i;Ls þ ji;Ls ¼ mY
_ i;v s þ ji;v s can be expressed in non-dimensional form using the non-dimen-
m ð8Þ
sional parameters
The species flux either in the liquid phase or gas phase is ex-
rs ¼ r s =r o ; s ¼ aL t=r2o ; g ¼ r=rs ; v ¼ ðv  vo Þ=vo ;
pressed using Fick’s law. Neglecting Soret effect and effect of pres-
sure gradient or body force, the species flux expression can be T ¼ ðT  T o Þ=T o ; ð18Þ
written in the following manner,
where ro and To are the initial radius and temperature, respectively,

ji;v s ¼ 2prs qg Sh Dim ðY i;v s  Y i;v 1 Þ: ð9Þ aL is liquid thermal diffusivity, and LeL is liquid phase Lewis Num-
ber, v is the solute mass fraction, and rs is the instantaneous radius.
 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79 75

The non-dimensional governing species and energy conserva- database book by Poling et al. [43]. While the diesel molecular for-
tion equations are mula is considered to be n-tetradecane (C14H30), methyl oleate
  (C19H36O2) is used to represent biodiesel for the estimation of
@v
i dr 2 @ v
i Xd @ @v

LeLr 2s  0:5LeL s g ¼ 2 g2 i ; ð19Þ transport properties as suggested by Ra et al. [24]. The species dif-
@s ds @ g g @ g @g fusivity within the droplet is not yet well documented. Hence, a
and, parametric study with some reasonable values of diffusivity has
! been performed.
@T dr 2s @T X t @ 2 @T
r 2s  0:5 g ¼ g : ð20Þ
@s ds @ g g2 @ g @g
3. Solution procedure
with the following initial and boundary conditions at the droplet
center The governing equations of species and energy for the liquid
    phase have been solved using implicit finite difference discretisa-
v i @ vi 
 tion scheme with uniformly spaced 100 grid points, and a time step
ðs ¼ 0Þ ¼ 0; ¼ 0; ð21Þ
T @ g T g¼0 size of 1e-05 s. The liquid phase properties like density, viscosity,
thermal conductivity, etc. have been updated at each time step
and the boundary conditions at the droplet surface, based on the average composition of the binary mixture droplet
8 at the previous time step. To provide the boundary conditions of
  < _ vi;s m
m _i
@ v i  4pr s qL X d Ds the species and energy equation mass vaporization rates and sen-
 ¼ ; ð22Þ
@g T g¼1
: QL
sible heat flux values are required which are calculated as follows:
4pr s X t kL T o

where kL and qL are the liquid thermal conductivity and density and (1) Use Yi,L,s and Ts from the initial conditions or the results of
Ds is the species diffusivity in the droplet. previous time step, Yi,g,s, Yi,g,1 and T1 to calculate the phys-
To take into account the effect of recirculation in the energy and ical properties of the gaseous film mixture using ‘‘1/3rd’’
species equations, the following factors are introduced rule.
h pe i (2) Calculate the dimensionless parameters, Nu0, Sho,i and Shi

L
X t ¼ 1:86 þ 0:86 tanh 2:225log10 ; ð23aÞ using Eqs. (12), (13), and (16).
30
(3) Calculate m _ from Eq. (10);
 
ReL ScL (4) Use the calculated m _ to calculate m _ i from Eq. (8);
X d ¼ 1:86 þ 0:86 tanh 2:225log10 : ð23bÞ (5) Apply an iterative procedure to calculate BH from Eq. (17)
30
and then calculate the sensible heat flux QL from Eq. (11).
The above mentioned functional forms of the effective diffusiv-
ity correction factors can be obtained from the details provided by
Sirignano [36]. To calculate the heat and mass transfer Peclet num- 4. Results and discussions
ber, the maximum surface velocity is calculated from the frictional
force balance on both the liquid and gas phases at the droplet sur- 4.1. Validity assessment
face as [36],
The model developed in the present study is assessed by com-
1 lg paring its predictions to one of the experimental findings of Daif
Us ¼ U C Re ; ð24Þ
6p lL rel F L et al. [44], who experimentally monitored the vaporization behav-
ior of both single and binary component droplets of heptane and
where the skin friction coefficient can be calculated as suggested by
Sirignano [36],

12:96Re2=3
L
CF ¼ : ð25Þ
1 þ BM

2.5. Material properties

The properties for air are obtained from Incropera and Dewitt
[42], and the liquid as well as vapor phase properties of fuel are ex-
tracted from Ra et al. [24]. Table 2 shows how the mixture proper-
ties for both liquid and gas phase have been calculated based on
the instantaneous composition and temperature of the mixture.
The diffusion coefficient of biodiesel vapor in diesel vapor is esti-
mated using the Fuller’s correlation as outlined in the property

Table 2
Formulae for the determination of the gas and liquid phase mixture properties.

Gaseous mixture Droplet mixture

Pg
Density qg ¼ PN Y i;g
ql ¼ Pm1 Y i;l
RT g i¼1 MW i i¼1 qi ;1
PN Pm
Thermal conductivity kg ¼ PX i;g ki;g kl ¼ i¼1 Y i;l ki;l
i¼1
j
X j;g /ij Fig. 1. Comparison between the experimental data of Daif et al. [44] and the
PN Pm present numerical predictions for the time evolution of the surface temperature, Ts,
Specific heat Cpg ¼ i¼1 Y i;g Cpi;g Cpl ¼ i¼1 Y i;l Cpi;l
P P and size, r2, of a fuel mixture droplet (25% heptanes and 75% decane). The ambient
Viscosity lg ¼ Ni¼1 PXi;gXli;g/ ll ¼ m i¼1 Y i;l li;l and initial conditions are: T1 = 348 K, P1 = 1 atm, U1 = 3.1_m/s, Td,o=294 K and
j j;g ij
ro = 0.743 mm.
76 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79
decane in a forced convective environment. The experimental
study of Daif et al. [44] was performed in a thermal wind tunnel
by securing a large droplet in a fixed position while blowing air
at atmospheric pressure past the suspended droplet.
The comparison between the numerical predictions and exper-
imental findings is presented in Fig. 1 for the temporal evolution of
the droplet radius and surface temperature of a 25% heptane and
75% decane droplet with the initial radius of 743 lm. The droplet
is subjected to a convective environment with a wind speed of
3.1 m/s. The ambient conditions are T1 = 348 K and P1 = 1 atm.
The maximum relative error for radius prediction is 4.43% and
for temperature is 1.75%. The model is thus validated. It will be ap-
plied to analyze the vaporization behavior of pure diesel, pure bio-
diesel and blended fuel droplets in the subsequent subsections.
4.2. Effect of blending ratio
The developed vaporization model is applied here to investigate
the vaporization characteristics of pure diesel, blended B20 (20%
volume fraction of Biodiesel), blended B50 (50% volume fraction
of Biodiesel), and pure biodiesel (B100) droplets. The mass fraction
ratio of diesel to biodiesel in B20 and B50 fuels are 0.75:0.25 and
0.44:0.56, respectively. The droplets are injected with an initial
droplet velocity of 5 m/s and diameter of 100 lm into a stagnant
air at 800 K and atmospheric pressure. The simulation is termi-
nated once the instantaneous diameter of the droplets reaches
0.2 times the initial diameter. In the present section, the species
diffusivity of diesel in biodiesel is considered to be 1.0E-08 m2/s.
2 2
Temporal evolution of droplet size presented by d =d0 for the spec-
ified four different types of fuel composition is presented in Fig. 2.
Given the large difference between diesel and biodiesel in the va-
por pressure, diesel is expected to vaporize faster than biodiesel.
Ra et al. [24] showed that for an isolated droplet in convective
environment pure biodiesel droplets take more time to vaporize
compared to pure diesel droplets. This behavior is depicted in
Fig. 2, which shows while only 0.03 s is required for the diesel
droplet diameter to reach 0.2d0, more than 0.07 s is required for
the biodiesel droplet to reach 0.2d0. The difference in vapor pres-
sure can also explain the reason behind the slope change for the
B20 and B50 cases. The slope changes occur because of the differ-
ence in vaporizability and relative proportion of the constituent
Fig. 2. Evolution of d2/do2 of 100 lm diameter droplets in an environment of 800 K
and 1 atm. pressure with initial droplet velocity of 5 m/s for pure diesel, biodiesel
and blended fuel droplets.
species as can be seen in other similar works in the literature
(For examples, Figs. 10b and 11b [21]; Fig. 9 [44]). The slope
changes in this study appear to be relatively more conspicuous be-
cause of huge difference in the volatility of diesel and biodiesel.
The slope change is more pronounced in case of B20 as the propor-
tion of diesel is larger than in case of B50. Diesel vaporizes first be-
cause of its relatively high vapor pressure. Since the blended B20
contains more diesel fuel, it vaporizes at a faster rate than the
B50 fuel as evident from the higher slope for B20 in comparison
with B50. The biodiesel component vaporizes once the droplet
reaches a temperature at which the biodiesel vapor pressure is
high enough as depicted by the noticeable heating period for
B100 droplet.
The time evolution of surface temperature for each of the spec-
ified four different droplet compositions is shown in Fig. 3. Quali-
tative differences are noticed among the four different droplets.
For both B0 and B100 droplets, a constant wet bulb temperature
is maintained after a heating period. The wet bulb temperature
for either droplet is lower than the droplet boiling temperature.
This behavior is expected since a droplet in an ambient tempera-
ture higher than its boiling point is supposed to reach thermal
equilibrium at its wet-bulb temperature that is lower than the
boiling point. The wet-bulb temperature of B0 is lower than that
of B100, which explains the increased time required for the B100
to start vaporizing. The temporal behavior of the surface tempera-
ture of the blended B20 droplet can be divided into 4 distinct
stages, namely (i) initial rapid heating stage, (ii) initial slow heat-
ing stage, (iii) secondary rapid heating stage, and (iv) secondary
slow heating stage. The initial heating stage heats the B20 droplet
to diesel wet bulb temperature. Because of diesel vaporization dur-
ing the initial slow heating stage, the heating slope is small. Once
the majority of diesel fraction is vaporized, the secondary rapid
heating stage commences. The blended B50 droplet exhibits simi-
lar behavior to the B20 droplet. However, the initial slow heating
and the secondary rapid heating stage seem to be blended to-
gether. During this stage, diesel fuel evaporates. However, due to
the relatively small content of diesel in the B50 droplet, the net
vaporization rate is relatively low compared to the B20 droplet
and hence the surface temperature of the droplet increases rela-
tively faster compared to the B20 droplet. Hence the slope changes
are not so pronounced in case of B50 droplet.
Fig. 3. Evolution of surface temperature of 100 lm diameter droplets in an
environment of 800 K and 1 atm. pressure with initial droplet velocity of 5 m/s for
pure diesel, biodiesel and blended fuel droplets.
 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79
Fig. 4. Effect of binary diffusion coefficient in liquid phase on droplet surface
temperature of B20 and B50 blended 100 lm diameter droplets in an environment
of 800 K and 1 atm. pressure with initial droplet velocity of 5 m/s.
4.3. Effect of binary diffusion coefficient in liquid phase
The influence of liquid species diffusion coefficient on the
vaporization characteristics of blended B20 and B50 droplets is as-
sessed in the current subsection. Fig. 4 shows the temporal evolu-
tion of the surface temperature of B20 and B50 droplets with two
diffusion coefficients 1.00E-08 and 5.00E-09 m2/s. Both the vapor-
ization duration and the droplet final surface temperature are af-
fected by the diffusion coefficient value. Higher final surface
temperature is noticed with the relatively high diffusion coefficient
for both compositions. The diffusion coefficient is the rate control-
ling factor for the evolution of species distribution inside the drop-
let with time as pointed out by the researchers in the literature
[45]. As the diffusion coefficient increases, the more volatile com-
ponent travels to the surface faster. The relatively fast migration in
highly volatile species results in more efficient vaporization of such
species. Consequently, the concentration of less volatile species
Fig. 5. Effect of binary diffusion coefficient in liquid phase on diesel mass fraction
evolution with time for B20 blended 100 lm diameter droplets in an environment
of 800 K and 1 atm. pressure with initial droplet velocity of 5 m/s.
77
after the second rapid heating stage increases as the diffusion coef-
ficient increases. Higher heating is required to vaporize the highly
concentrated species of relatively less volatile species. In other
words, an increase in the diffusion coefficient results in an increase
in the final surface temperature of the droplet as well as the time to
reach a specific droplet size as depicted in Fig. 4.
Fig. 5 presents the temporal evolution of diesel mass fraction at
the droplet surface and center locations for a blended B20 droplet
with two different diffusion coefficients. This figure clearly shows
that increasing the diffusion coefficient results in a faster depletion
rate of diesel content from the droplet center due to the faster
migration of volatile species from the center to the droplet surface.
Initially when the droplet temperature is low, the diesel starts
evaporating from the droplet surface and this drives the diesel in-
side the droplet to migrate towards the surface. But due to diffu-
sional resistance some amount of diesel (more volatile
component) always remain trapped inside the droplet interior
and the extent of diesel trapped inside depend on the binary spe-
cies diffusion coefficient. As temperature increases, biodiesel starts
to vaporize and remaining diesel migrates towards the surface.
Once both components are present at the surface, diesel vaporizes
faster than biodiesel as it is more volatile and then biodiesel con-
tinues evaporating until the remaining diesel inside the droplet
comes to the surface.
4.4. Effect of ambient temperature
The influence of ambient temperature on blended fuel droplet
vaporization is investigated through the comparison between the
vaporization mechanisms of a 100 lm B20 droplet at two different
ambient temperatures, namely 800 K and 1600 K. Both cases are
performed at atmospheric pressure. The temporal evolutions of
droplet surface and center temperatures for both the cases are pre-
sented in Fig. 6. Similar to earlier cases, the simulation is termi-
nated once the instantaneous diameter reduces to 0.2 of the
original diameter. Higher ambient temperature indicates higher
heating rate, and consequently faster vaporization rate. Therefore,
the final droplet size for 1600 K is reached much earlier than the
800 K case. Furthermore, the final droplet temperature is less for
the 1600 K case because higher vaporization rate will cause higher
amount vapor annulus to surround the droplet. The insulating
Fig. 6. Effect of ambient temperature on temperature evolution of B20 100 lm
diameter droplets for 800 K and 1600 K at 1 atm. pressure with initial droplet
velocity of 5 m/s.
78 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79

property of the vapor annulus limits the temperature elevation of

the droplet. It is interesting to notice that an increase in the ambi-
ent temperature results in an increase in the deviation between the
surface and center temperature of the droplet. An increase in the
ambient temperature results in an increase in the heating rate of
the droplet surface temperature. However, thermal diffusion resis-
tance within the liquid droplet limits the instantaneous propaga-
tion of the surface temperature to the droplet center.

4.5. Effect of droplet size

The influence of initial droplet size on the behavior of blended

fuels in convective environment is presented in this subsection.
Temporal evolutions of the droplet size and surface temperature
of 100 and 50 lm diameter droplets of blended B20 fuel injected
at initial velocity of 5 m/s into 800 K and 1 atm. pressure environ-
ment are presented in Fig. 7. The simulation is terminated once the
instantaneous diameter reaches 0.2 times the initial diameter. As
expected the 50 lm diameter droplet reaches its final diameter
much earlier than the 100 lm one. In both cases the slope changes
for both the droplet size and surface temperature evolution with Fig. 8. Evolution of surface and center mass fraction of diesel with time for blended
B20 and B50 droplets at 800 K and atmospheric pressure with initial droplet
time are evident. The figure shows that higher amount of heating
velocity of 5 m/s.
is required for the 100 lm droplet for vaporizing. The secondary
rapid heating stage of the larger droplet has a smaller slope than Fig. 8 shows the temporal variations of the mass fractions of die-
the small droplet. In addition, one would expect larger amount of sel, Ydiesel at the surface and center of the droplet for both blended
diesel to be trapped for the large droplet and hence it results in B20 and B50 droplets subject to the same conditions as in Figs. 2
slower heating rate. So for the larger droplet the diesel present will and 3. A noticeable amount of diesel is trapped inside the droplet
tend to attain equilibrium with the ambience and the surface tem- after the vaporization of the majority of diesel content from the
perature reaches a plateau kind of stage but as the diesel is gone droplet surface. Evident diesel entrapment triggers the question
from the droplet the droplet again starts heating until the biodiesel whether the trapped diesel reaches the local boiling point, and con-
starts vaporizing considerably. As a result the slope changes in this sequently experiences phase transition inside the droplet.
figure are more conspicuous in case of larger droplet. As suggested by Sirignano and Wu [39], the local boiling point
of entrapped diesel can be estimated from Raoult’s law, such that
4.6. Internal gasification
R ln X i;c
T 1 1
iðbÞ;c  T iðbÞ;pure ¼ ð26Þ
One of the critical questions that need to be addressed is the Lv ap;i
possibility of internal boiling. The entrapment of diesel inside the
Fig. 9 indicate that the local boiling point of the entrapped die-
blended droplet due to diffusion resistance has already been dem-
sel is higher than the droplet center temperature, Tc, for both
onstrated (see e.g. Fig. 5). During evaporation, the droplet core
blended fuels. It is interesting to notice that the blended B20 drop-
temperature can increase beyond the local boiling point of diesel,
let is more prone to reach the critical limit for the onset of internal
resulting in internal gasification, and possibly micro-explosion.
gasification due to the larger relative amount of entrapped diesel.

Fig. 9. Numerical predictions of the temporal variations of the ratio of the trapped
Fig. 7. Effect of droplet size for a B20 blended fuel: non-dimensional diameter diesel local boiling temperature Tb, with respect to the droplet center temperature,
squared and surface temperature evolution of 100 and 50 lm diameter droplets at Tc, for blended B20 and B50 droplets at 800 K and atmospheric pressure with initial
800 K and atmospheric pressure with initial droplet velocity of 5 m/s. droplet velocity of 5 m/s.
 K. Saha et al. / Applied Energy 93 (2012) 71–79
5. Conclusions
A comprehensive multicomponent droplet vaporization model
for pure and blended biodiesel droplets in a high temperature con-
vective environment has been developed. The model proposes a
modified as well as accurate approach by taking into account the
difference in the gas phase diffusivity of diesel and biodiesel va-
pors. Comparison with published experimental data shows that
the model is able to predict accurately the vaporization history
of a multicomponent droplet. The findings from the modeling
study reveal that diesel being more volatile evaporates sooner than
the biodiesel. Furthermore, an increase in the proportion of biodie-
sel in the blends results in an increase in the vaporization time and
droplet final surface temperature. The blend vaporizing time can
be reduced by either increasing the ambient temperature or
decreasing the droplet size. The influence of binary diffusion coef-
ficient in the liquid phase on the diesel/biodiesel blend has been
investigated. An increase in the diffusion coefficient results in an
increase in both the vaporization time and the droplet final surface
temperature. Such correlation highlights the need for accurate
database of thermophysical properties. The possibility of internal
boiling inside the blended biodiesel droplets is investigated and
it is observed that at atmospheric pressure and an ambient tem-
perature of 800 K blended droplets with higher proportion of diesel
are more prone to undergo interior gasification. The model devel-
oped should be extended to analyze the effect of ambient pressure
for better understanding of supercritical or transcritical droplet
evaporation in combustion environment.
Acknowledgment
The financial support from the Ontario Research Fund-Research
Excellence (ORF-RE) program via contract # RE-02-019 is greatly
appreciated. The authors would also like to acknowledge the dis-
cussions with Dr. Yi Ren.
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