Oxycombustion diluted by recirculating flue gases is one of the most advanced innovating combustion technique to adapt carbon capture and storage (CCS) to industrial combustion plants. The dilution by flue gases with a large amount of CO2 impacts the flame behavior in terms of combustion efficiency, pollutant emission, radiative transfer and flame stabilization. The present paper investigates, at lab-scale, the effect of CO2 dilution on a spray oxyfuel flame in terms of flame structure and stabilization. A burner is well designed such that the boundary conditions may be accurately measured and be suitable to provide a confident database. A central spray of ethanol is surrounded by a O-2-CO2 coflow. The coflow is modular to investigate the effect of CO2 content separately from the coflow velocity. Size-classified Phase Doppler Anemometry characterizes the spatial non-homogeneity in size and velocity. The average flame structures are observed by OH* chemiluminescence and complementary instantaneous flame observations by OH Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence. Three types of flames are observed with a trailing flame exhibiting a double structure specific to two-phase combustion and linked to the competition between vaporization, chemical and mixing time scales. The amount of CO2 in the oxidant affects strongly the flame structure and stabilization. It modifies drastically the chemical time, the flame temperature, and thus the vaporization time and the size dispersion. The outer flame of the double structure is always diffusion-like while the inner flame changes from diffusion-like to premixed-like when the vaporization time shortens. This investigation shows the additional effects of CO2 dilution on spray combustion. (C) 2014 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.