Saudi researchers looking at methanol-DME to ensure compatibility with future engines

In Saudi Arabia, highly fuel-efficient new engine designs could significantly reduce the environmental impact of vehicles, especially if the engines run on renewable nonpetroleum-based fuels. Ensuring these unconventional fuels are compatible with next-generation engines was the aim of a new computational study on fuel ignition behavior at King Abdullah University of Science & Technology. The team used computational analysis to investigate methanol-DME combustion chemistry. Because combustion is too complex to efficiently simulate in full, the researchers first generated a skeletal model of the process in which peripheral reactions have been stripped away.