Kinetic Investigation of η-Al2O3 Catalyst for Dimethyl Ether Production

Energy consumption throughout the world has been continuously increased especially for industrialized cities. The carbon-based non-renewable sources, mainly crude oil, are unsustainable because of the production of the significant amount of greenhouse gases in which is the main cause of the global warming. To meet the energy demand and decrease the air pollution an alternative renewable energy should be developed. The production of clean biofuel such as dimethyl ether (DME) is an attractive alternative for pollution mitigation. DME is an environmentally friendly fuel with clean-burning and smoke-free emissions [ 1 ]. The attractive combustion properties are due to it containing neither sulphur nor nitrogen, with very low SO x or NO x emissions. The lack of direct carbon-to-carbon bonds means it does not generate particulate matter emissions. DME can be produced by two main routes; either from syngas using a bi-functional catalyst (Eq. 1 ) or via the dehydration of methanol over solid catalysts such as Al 2 O 3 (Eq. 2 ), according to the following reactions [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]: