Recent Progress in the Production, Application and Evaluation of Oxymethylene Ethers

To counteract greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions, ambitious regulatory measures with respect to energy generation, supply and consumption have been set. In the fuel sector, successive substitution of common fossil fuels by non-fossil ones is a promising option to meet the respective demands. Regarding diesel fuels, the use of oxymethylene ethers (OMEs) has been proposed. Especially OMEs of the type CH3O(CH2O)(n)CH3 (n = 3-5) exhibit properties that are similar to common diesel fuel and formation of soot and NOx is drastically reduced during combustion. Within this work, recent progress regarding production, application and evaluation of OMEs is summarized and discussed.