Synergy effects of Novec 1230 and venting on ethanol-gasoline vapor explosion inhibition

As ethanol-gasoline is being widely used as an energy-saving alternative around the world, its fire/explosion problems needed to be solved, but few research studies involve its explosion inhibition. Additionally, although dodecafluoro-2-methylpentan-3-one (Novec 1230) was a long-term replacement of Halon, its use in explosion inhibitions has not been found. This work aims to investigate synergy inhibition effects of Novec 1230 and venting on ethanol-gasoline (E10) vapor explosion. Flame propagation and pressure data were recorded using a high-speed camera and three pressure transducers, respectively. The chemical principle of E10 explosion inhibition using Novec 1230 was inferred and verified by reaction product analysis using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). The results indicate that synergy of venting and Novec 1230 can effectively inhibit flame propagation and explosion overpressure of E10. As phi increased from 0 to 1.5, all typical overpressure peak structures (P-b, P-fv, P-cv, P-ext) were inhibited and the best P-cv reached 74.5%. For vented ducts, phi showed negative linear correlations with P-max and K-G, P-max, and K-G were quadratic increments monotonously with the vent coefficient (Kv). Two formulas were obtained, which can be used to quantitatively calculate P-max and K-G at various phi and Kv values. These results were useful for conditions that actual engineering required two explosion inhibition means simultaneously and Novec 1230 explosion inhibition system design.