Dimethyl ether and Dibutyl ether produced from Biogas and Biomass and Industrial waste gas

Inhaltsangabe oder Einleitung

At the begin of the 20th century C. Weizmann studied methods for substitution of petroleum, the most important fuel at this time beside coal. His famous work led to the patent about the ABE process [1], producing acetone by clostridium acetobutylicum and beside acetone, butanol (C4 alcohol) and ethanol (C2 alcohol) are created. (Historical: acetone could be used in military applications). The ideas [1] were very fruitful, but the world wars and the huge amount crude oil in Texas started a new period of economic development and growth of the world trade and business. At the end of the 20th century we recognized the limitation of the raw materials. Additional the Diesel technology reached a satisfied region in development the pollution of the exhaust gas. 2005 VOLVO started a project replacing fossil Diesel by Dimethyl ether [2]. This was so successful and it was the prolongation of a development done in 2008 by VOLVO [2]. At this time no heavy truck company was interested. At the end of the project VOLVO entered with the DME trucks successful the US market. The next company testing DME was MACK TRUCK followed two years later FORD. This was the birth of a new market. DME has the advantage to be monomolecular fuel, which can be easy supplied to existing and new Diesel engines. Using the known common rail for DME injected into the combustion chamber of engines it changes the phase from liquid to gas. This important property leads to a dramatic reduction of exhaust gas pollution in carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and soot, fine particles.