Future Fossil Fuel Alternative; DME (A review)

Abstract

The world energy consumption is steadily growing with the industrial improvements of the developing countries and the readily available fossil fuel reserves lack in fulfilling this energy requirement. The depletion of the easily achievable reserves; gives rise to the concept of oil production from oil shale and tar sands. However, the high cost and the operational difficulties stand as the major drawbacks in front of these technologies. Along with these circumstances, and the environmental concerns on fossil fuel consumption which is considered as the reasoning behind ‘Global warming’; world is seeking for alternative fuel technologies.

In this respect, this paper aims to give an insight on the allocation of ethers, mainly di-methyl ether (DME), as fossil fuel alternatives. DME is considered as a possible candidate as LPG and diesel additive and/or substitute due to the similarity between the physical properties and its high cetane number. Moreover, DME can be produced from a variety of raw materials starting from biomass, coal and natural gas which results in production flexibility. This paper is a brief review of the possible DME production processes, and the potential DME applications especially in transportation and domestic utilizations.