Oxymethylene Ether (OME) Fuel Catalyst Screening Using In Situ NMR Spectroscopy

Online NMR measurements are introduced in the current study as a new analytical setup for investigation of the oxymethylene dimethyl ether (OME) synthesis. For the validation of the setup, the newly established method is compared with state-of-the-art gas chromatographic analysis. Afterwards, the influence of different parameters, such as temperature, catalyst concentration and catalyst type on the OME fuel formation based on trioxane and dimethoxymethane is investigated. As catalysts, Amberlyst^TM 15 (A15) and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TfOH) are utilized. A kinetic model is applied to describe the reaction in more detail. Based on these results, the activation energy (A15: 48.0 kJ mol^-1 and TfOH: 72.3 kJ mol^-1 ) and the order in catalyst (A15: 1.1 and TfOH: 1.3) are calculated and discussed.