As it becomes more and more difficult to find "easy" oil, various alternative fuels are introduced to the markets. These fuels have chemical properties that are different from the traditional gasoline and diesel fuels so that engine efficiency and other engine behaviors may be affected To improve engine efficiency and to identify which alternative fuel is the cleanest fuel solution, it is necessary to compile information about the ignition delay, which governs auto-ignition in spark-ignition (SI), compression-ignition (CI) and homogeneous charge compression-ignition (HCCI) engines. In this study, we measured ignition delay on the Rapid Compression Machine (RCM). RCM is a single-stroke device, which compresses uniform mixtures to engine-like condition. We can interpret from the pressure the detailed heat release process. A comprehensive ignition delay database of toluene/n-heptane mixtures and gasoline/ethanol mixtures was established The data allow us to calculate the auto-ignition behavior in engines. Depending on application the correct choice of alternative fuels may be made.

This book is devoted to Gas-Phase Thermal Reactions (GPTRs), and especially combustion reactions, which take place in engines, burners and industrial chemical reactors to produce mechanical or thermal energy to incinerate pollutants or to manufacture chemical substances, and which play an important part due to the consequences they have on the environment : fires and explosions, tropospheric pollution, greenhouse effect, hole in the stratospheric ozone layer. The design and running of engines, burners, incinerators, industrial reactors, both economical in fuels, raw materials and energy, efficient, safe and clean, as weIl as the scientific evaluation of the causes and the effects of atmospheric pollutions with a view to taking rational environmental decisions, which necessitate an understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of these reactions and an access to models allowing numerical simulations of the phenomena being studied to be carried out. The analysis of the results ofthe simulations then allows an optimal solution to be found to the industrial problem or to extrapolate the natural phenomena.