Junhui Li received his bachelor’s degree in aircraft design and engineering from Beihang University in China in 2014, and his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 2016. He joined the Laboratory for Advanced Combustion and Energy Research (LACER) as a Ph.D. student in January 2018.
Research
Biofuels are considered an attractive means of supplying renewable energy. But biomass intrinsically has high moisture content, either during growth (e.g., algae) and/or during processing (e.g., ethanol). During the processing of biomass or waste, water is separated in an energy-intensive step.
There are many opportunities to utilize high moisture content biomass if the energy content of these fuels can be extracted. The combustion of mixtures of fuel and water has been the subject of many research groups, including LACER. A computational fluid dynamic simulations approach is combined with experimental research to investigate wet fuel combustion. Flame structure and temperature distribution are studied for the optimization of the wet fuel combustion process. Pyrolysis is investigated based on the current progress of wet fuel combustion research.
