• Clean Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.287-294
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• 2009

In order to separate the fuel-grade DME from the product of a direct DME synthesise reaction, containing 19~20% of DME, an absorption column and a purification column were employed. In the DME absorption column, the flow rate of the methanol required to recover more than 99% of DME at 50 bar was estimated by the correlation obtained from the lab-scale experiments. In the DME purification column, the maximum DME recovery of 98.2% could be obtained even from the side stream at the 3rd stage above the feed stage, since the feed stream originated from the product of the absorption column had already contained a large amount of DME (20~30 mol%) and only a small amount of light products such as $CO_2$ and $N_2$ (5~10 mol%).

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.559-571
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• 2012

Dimethyl ether (DME) is a new clean fuel as an environmentally-benign energy resource. DME can be manufactured from various energy sources including natural gas, coal, and biomass. In addition to its environmentally friendly properties, DME has similar characteristics to those of LPG. The aim of this article is to represent the development of new DME process with KOGAS's own technologies. KOGAS has investigated and developed new innovative DME synthesis process from synthesis gas in gaseous phase fixed bed reactor. DME has been traditionally produced by the dehydration of methanol which is produced from syngas, a product of natural gas reforming. This traditional process is thus called the two-step method of preparing DME. However, DME can also be manufactured directly from syngas (single-step). The single-step method needs only one reactor for the synthesis of DME, instead of two for the two-step process. It can also alleviate the thermodynamic limitations associated with the synthesis of methanol, by converting the produced methanol into DME, thereby potentially enhancing the overall conversion of syngas into DME. KOGAS had launched the 10 ton/day DME demonstration plant project in 2004 at Incheon KOGAS LNG terminal. In the mid of 2008, KOGAS had finished the construction of this plant and has successively finished the demonstration plant operation. And since 2008, we have established the basic design of commercial plant which can produce 3,000 ton/day DME.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.75-82
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• 2003

DME is a good alternative fuel to reduce the smoke remarkably when used in a diesel engine, while problems concerned with low lubricity and high compressibility exist. In the present study, single cylinder DI diesel engine was operated with neat DME and DME blended fuels which are DME-diesel blended fuel and DME-propane blended fuel. The results showed that the power of the neat DME and DME blended fuels was the same as that of pure diesel oil, and the specific energy consumption slightly increased. In addition, smoke emission was considerably reduced with the increase of DME content up to zero level, but NOx emission was slightly increased.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.41-45
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• 2010

The physical properties of DME(Dimethyl Ether) are very similar to LPG and well-mixed. As cetane number of DME is similar to diesel fuel that can replace diesel fuel and alternative energy. DME is a clean energy source that can be manufactured from various raw materials such as natural gas, CBM(Coal Bed Methane) and biomass. DME has no carbon-carbon bond in its molecular structure and its combustion essentially generates no soot as well as no SOx. The development of DME process in KOGAS have 4 section. First, syngas section can be manufactured various syngas ratio. This completes the tri-reforming process for the synthesis gas ratio of approximately 4.0 to 1.0 range can be adjusted. Second, $CO_2$ is removed from the $CO_2$ removal section of about 92~99%, so the maximum concentration of $CO_2$ entering the DME synthesis reactor should not exceed 8%. Third, in the DME synthesis section, if the temperature of DME reactor increases, the activity of DME catalyst increased. but for the long-term activity is desirable to maintain the proper temperature. Finally, the purity of DME in the DME purification section is over 99.6%.

• LP가스
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.59-67
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• 2008

지난 4월 2일 GAS KOREA 2008 전시회가 개최된 서울무역전시장에서 '한국DME협회 분과발표회'가 열렸다. 이날 분과발표회에서는 'DME Demo 플랜트 현황소개(한국가스공사 연구 개발원 조원준 박사 "DME 연료실증, 시험연구 사업현황(한국가스공사 연구개발원 백영순 박사)" 커먼레일형 연료공급계를 탑재한 2리터급 DME 차량개발(자동차 부품연구원 정재우 박사) "급속압축장치를 이용한 불균일 예혼합기의 DME HCCI연소 과정에 관한 연구(울산대학교 임옥택 교수) DME의 자착화 측정 및 세탄가의 추정(인하대학교 이대엽교수)" 직접분사식 압축착화기관에서 DME연료의 분무미립화 및 배출물 특성(한양대학교 이창식 교수)' 에 대한 발표도 이뤄졌다.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.173-182
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• 2014

Dimethyl ether (DME) is a new clean fuel as an environmentally-being energy resources. DME has similar characteristics to those of LPG and can be substituted Diesel fuel. KOGAS has investigated and developed new innovative DME synthesis process from synthesis gas with KOGAS's own technologies. KOGAS had finished the construction of 10ton/day DME demonstration plant in 2008, we have established the basic design of commercial plant which can produce 3,000ton/day DME. Specifically, an economic model for a commercial DME project will be presented. It accounts for all the major cost factors that are considered in a commercial scale project as the model input for performing cash flow analysis, after which key economic indicators are produced including the internal rate of return (IRR), net present value (NPV). Sensitivity analysis is performed to identify dominant cost factors to the project economics and quantify their impact. The inputs to the economic analysis will be based on representative cost factors from the commercial-scale design of KOGAS' direct DME process supplemented by literature data. Case study results will be presented based on recent commercialization projects.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.57-62
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• 2011

DME(Dimethyl Ehther) is considered as an attractive fuel in terms of clean, environmentally friendly form of energy, multi-source and multi-purpose. As the physical properties of DME are almost similar to LPG, DME can be mixed with LPG and DME-LPG mixture fuels seem to be employed without major remodeling of the existing LPG supply infrastructure. However, little attention has been given to the effect of different DME-LPG mixture fuels on consequence analysis to adjacent facilities, buildings and etc. In this work, the consequence analysis by different DME-LPG mixture fuels has been done. The results were discussed in terms of release rate, jet fire, vapor cloud explosions, BLEVEs and etc. It was found that the consequences estimated from fire and explosion scenarios assumed were almost similar for both LPG and DME 20 %.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.178.1-178.1
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• 2011

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.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.205-209
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• 2012

This study focused on comparing macroscopic characteristics of DME and diesel fuel experimentally. DME fuel is one of the most promising alternative fuels because of its superiority in atomization characteristic and clearness in terms of exhaust gas compared with existing fossil fuels. In addition, DME fuel has high cetane number so it could be applied to compression ignition engine. However because DME fuel exists in gas phase at room temperature and atmospheric pressure, and it corrodes rubber parts of fuel line, DME fuel is hard to apply to commercial vehicles. To establish knowledge about DME fuel and furthermore, to develop commercial DME vehicles such as passenger cars, many research have been proceeded steadily. The present study, by comparing spray characteristics of DME fuel to those of diesel fuel, improved atomization characteristics in DME were revealed. Injection quantity measurement and spray visualization experiment were progressed and it was revealed that DME fuel shows small injection quantity than that of diesel fuel and axial development of spray in terms of spray tip penetration decreases when DME fuel was injected.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.36 no.8
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• pp.1024-1029
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• 2012

As DME (Dimethyl ether) is the one of the future possible massive energy sources synthesized from natural gas, KOGAS has been doing to obtain overseas resources to meet the domestic needs. and tried to build new DME FPSO ship. This paper presents that it can help for the DME storage tank designers and storage management engineers doing proper work by understood the evaporation phenomena and pressure change of DME by thermal intake in storage tank. The experimental result shows that the evaporation rate and pressure are increased with higher liquid filling level. The proper DME liquid filling level in tank is obtained as lower than full 98% volume of tank in case of storing longer than a day, because the pressure is increased rapidly with full 98% filled level of storage tank.