Ford Motor chemists report work on ultra-clean DME diesel fuel.

[NNadir]

There is much discussion of ethanol these days as the alternative fuel.

Personally, I question whether ethanol is a realistically scalable fuel.

A better fuel as I often say, is DME, which is garnering a lot of attention in Asia to run diesel engines. Although I often am among those who maligns the US efforts to develop viable energy alternatives, it turns out that the Ford Motor Company does have researchers working on DME - something of a surprise.

DME, as I often note, is available from a variety of systems from the very dirty (coal) to the extremely clean, hydrogen (cleanly generated) and carbon dioxide.

Here is a publication, now several years old, from some of these Ford Motor Company scientists, working in collaboration with Danish Chemists and a team from Lawrence Livimore National Laboratory: J. Phys. Chem. A 2000, 104, 8194-8206

Introduction

There is interest in improving motor vehicle fuel economy while complying with emissions regulations. Diesel engines offer improved fuel economy compared to gasoline vehicles, but NOx and particulate matter will be difficult to control to proposed future emissions standards. With modern spark-ignition engines operating at stoichiometry, NOx emissions are controlled by a three-way catalytic converter, and particle emissions are low. Because diesel engines operate fuel lean, control of NOx by a catalyst becomes difficult. Diesel particulate emissions are higher than from spark ignition engines and can be reduced via traps, fuel additives, or changes in engine operating strategy. Reduction of feedgas emissions of these two regulated pollutants is confounded by the fact that engine operating conditions leading to reduced particulate matter result in higher NOx emissions and vice versa.

Several recent publications have presented results from diesel engines or diesel vehicles operated on pure dimethyl ether (DME).1-6 These experiments showed that DME is an excellent diesel fuel with a high cetane rating. This fuel produces very low particulate emissions, while the NOx emissions are similar to those from current diesel fuel under the same engine operating conditions.4 This allows the engine operating conditions to be adjusted to reduce NOx without an accompanying increase in particulate emissions.7

Compression-ignition (diesel) engines require fuels that ignite easily. The ignition efficiency is defined by the cetane number of the fuel, which must be relatively high (>40-50) for a good diesel fuel. The high cetane rating that characterizes DME (>50) is in contrast to the very low cetane rating of branched ethers such as methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), which are difficult to ignite by compression and are used as octane enhancers in sparkignition engine fuels. Because of the possible importance of DME as an alternative diesel fuel and because of the dramatic difference in ignition characteristics of ether fuels, there has been substantial interest in the oxidation chemistry of DME...

...These photographs indicate that, at this mass flow condition, DME generates much less particulate mass than does ethane. When the volume flow of DME is increased to 335 cm3 min-1, the DME flame produces visible luminosity (Figure A-2) comparable to that of methane fuel at the lower carbon mass
Figure A-1...

...However, the fact that DME produces much less luminosity than an ethane flame at the same volume
(and carbon mass) flow rate, indicates that the low soot emission from DME in a diesel engine may result from the fact that combustion of DME in a diffusion flame inherently produces lower soot formation rates at the same operating condition than do most hydrocarbon fuels. This may result partially from the fact that DME carries some oxygen in its molecular structure, which may reduce particulate formation in a diffusion flame. The fact that it is a gas probably also lowers the soot emission even further relative to that of a liquid fuel in diesel-fueled vehicles.

The Abstract is here: http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jpcafh/2000/104/i35/abs/jp994074c.html

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Supposedly, Model T's could burn ethanol.

So maybe Ford is returning to a more innovative outlook.

It's interesting that it is NOT in the auto makers' best interests to confine themselves to one fuel. For years, they worked with the petroleum companies to match supply and demand in the automotive fuel sector--high-compression engines needed more smoothly-burning fuels, for example--but there comes a point at which their interests diverge substantially from those of the oil companies. The oil companies have a vested interest in sticking as close as possible to the status quo, but this could spell ruin for the auto makers, as American car buyers have other options from Japanese and European mfgrs. For the American mfgrs, it is adapt or perish, and that may mean increasingly distancing themselves from the petro companies.

The Big Three, pillars of progress! :D

[Dead_Parrot]

2. Company policy...

...is - or at least, should be - directed to generating return to the shareholders by any means necessary. Whilst it comes as a slight surprise that the US motor co's are investigating other fuel sources before the oils actually run out - presumably William Ford's freebies from Exxon didn't cut the mustard this year - it's actually a legal (and moral, in a way) requirement for them not to pin everything down to a dwindling fuel source, but to ensure the company can generate dividends for ever and ever, amen.

Presumably Ford's Board have woken up and realised the shit is hitting the fan. More power to them, I say (and their personally invested wealth. Yay capitalism!):silly:

[madrchsod]

3. dodge was working on a hybrid intrepid

but deemed the project to expensive to develop in an unstable market. gasoline prices must stay at the present level for auto companies to develop all models into hybrids. another big problem is the distribution and point of sale for hybrid type fuels. that isn`t going to be cheap either.

[phantom power]

4. The process of national "discourse" on these topics is aggravating.

As you say, the only alternatives that get any national air-time are ethanol, and things like syn-gas from coal, or oil-shale.

If there were still such a thing as "reporting," there would be "reporters" assigned to research the issues, and present a wider variety of options.

We should start a pool. How long will we wait before a major network presents any information on DME? Or any synthetic fuel produced using nuclear or renewables as the primary energy sources (as opposed to non-starters like coal or oil shale, etc)

[NNadir]

5. My guess is that you will hear a lot about this fuel in the future one way

or the other.

It is just too damn attractive. It's not like the rest of the world is waiting for CBS and CNN to announce it. I think that the manufactured reality that goes on around here, in the US, cannot hold up forever. Eventually reality will bite the US in the ass. (It is likely to be very, very painful, but so be it. The longer you ignore the wolf, the more he can chew you up before spitting you out.)

I would guess that the first place DME will show up will be where LPG applications exist.

I would suppose it will be used after that for meeting peak loads in plants now served by natural gas. Next will come very large diesel applications, such as ships, power plants and trains. (One caveat that I have with respect to the ease with which it will displace natural gas has to do with the types of materials that are commonly used to seal natural gas pipelines. Depending on their properties, a change might be necessary, since DME does not have exactly the same chemistry as methane.)

The final place would probably be cars, should humanity continue to exist and continue to drive cars.

The probability that humanity will survive of course, is tightly tied to how DME is made. If it's made from coal, we not have very long to enjoy it's use. If it is made by other means, things will be better.

[phantom power]

6. Could I use DME in my propane stove? Or is the plumbing wrong?

[NNadir]

7. I think that you could, again, depending on the seals.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. The seals?

...error '80040e07' Data type mismatch in criteria expression...

:silly:

[NNadir]

9. I was actually talking rubber seals, not blubber seals.

I actually don't think that the seals would be much of a problem, although I recall reading somewhere that to convert a diesel engine to DME, it is necessary to replace some types of gaskets and seals.

I don't know that this is an issue, really. It would be super convenient if DME could be added to existing natural gas lines, although I would expect that the fact that DME is a liquid at moderate pressures might also weigh against this.

It may be possible to use only part of the existing infrastructure.

[phantom power]

10. Damned polymophic data types.

If only those seals were as easy to replace.