Use of dimethyl ether

Mainly used as raw materials for organic synthesis, but also as solvents, aerosols, refrigerants and anesthetics, as well as civil composite ethanol and freon aerosol substitutes. Fuel additives promoted abroad have many unique uses in pharmaceutical, dye and pesticide industries.

As a basic chemical raw material, dimethyl ether has many unique uses in medicine, fuel, pesticide and other chemical industries because of its good characteristics of easy compression, easy condensation and easy vaporization. For example, high-purity dimethyl ether can replace freon as aerosol propellant and refrigerant, which can reduce the pollution to the atmospheric environment and damage to the ozone layer.

Because of its good water solubility and oil solubility, its application range is far superior to that of petrochemical products such as propane and butane. Replacing methanol as a new raw material for formaldehyde production can obviously reduce the production cost of formaldehyde, which shows its superiority in large-scale formaldehyde plant.

As a civil gas, its storage, transportation and combustion safety, premixed gas calorific value and theoretical combustion temperature are better than those of liquefied petroleum gas, and it can be used as a mixture of peak shaving gas and liquefied petroleum gas in urban pipeline gas. It is also an ideal fuel for diesel engines. Compared with methanol-fueled vehicles, there is no cold start problem. It is also one of the main raw materials for preparing low-carbon olefins in the future.

Extended data:

I. Related nature

Dimethyl ether (DME) is a colorless gas with slight ether smell, inert, non-carcinogenic, but neurotoxic. It also has good miscibility and can be mixed with most polar and nonpolar organic solvents.

3.700ml of dimethyl ether gas is soluble in 100ml of water, while dimethyl ether is easily soluble in gasoline, carbon tetrachloride, acetone, chlorobenzene, methyl acetate and other organic solvents, and can be mutually soluble with water in any proportion after adding a small amount of additives. When burning, the flame is slightly brighter.

Second, packaging and storage.

The physical properties of dimethyl ether (DME) and liquefied petroleum gas are similar, and the high-pressure gas safety regulations in domestic laws and regulations are still applicable. The transportation and storage system is also the same as LPG. It is non-corrosive to metals, and it is not much different from LPG in transportation containers, pipelines and storage tanks.

The large-capacity storage tank is stored in a low-temperature storage tank at about -25℃. With the cryogenic storage tank, only ordinary BOG re-liquefaction equipment is needed, but the required pressure can be slightly lower than IPG. The latent heat of evaporation of dimethyl ether is basically the same as that of propane, which will help reduce the operating cost of dimethyl ether.

Baidu encyclopedia-dimethyl ether