Development of additives for DME as a renewable energy

신재생에너지로서 DME 연료의 첨가제 개발

DME is generally expected to be used as a promising clean alternative fuel to diesel fuel. DME is not natural product but a synthetic product that is produced either through the dehydration of methanol or a direct synthetic from syngas. As DME has no carbon-carbon bond in its molecular structure and is an oxygenate fuel, it's combustion essentially generates no soot. DME has such cetane number of 55~60 that it can be used as a diesel engine fuel. However, DME has low lubricity but a proven method to solve the poor lubricity is by adding lubricity improver. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop lubricity improver of DME as a transport fuel in Korea. In this study, we investigated a possibility of fatty acid ester compounds as a candidate to improve DME lubricity as compared with current lubricity improver of diesel. We also evaluated quality characteristics, storage stability of DME with lubricity additives.