Decarbonising UK Industry through Low-Carbon Fuels: Evaluating Dimethyl Ether in Marine Applications

长期以来，人们一直在寻找一种环保、易于储存和运输的船用压缩发动机燃料。这已经在二甲醚（DME）中实现，二甲醚是一种可用作柴油直接替代品的燃料。与压缩天然气（CNG）或液化天然气（LNG）不同，最重要的是，DME可用于压缩发动机，这大大影响了这种燃料在LNG，CNG，乙醇或甲醇上的潜在应用。它不需要微粒过滤器或选择性催化还原（“SCR”）系统，因此发动机比标准柴油发动机便宜得多，也不那么复杂。他们是免除过滤器清洁和“添加蓝色”协议的现代柴油发动机。所有这些都证明了从天然气生产二甲醚的新技术的开始工作的合理性。二甲醚通常是从甲烷和生物质原料生产的，这些原料不是净碳中和的。目前，能够将CO2或天然气直接转化为二甲醚的技术还很少，而且收率和选择性都很高。我们最近开发的混合催化平台已经证明了在燃料和聚合物中用于后续利用（CCU）的高效CO2储存。该项目将在这些最新发现的基础上设计一个将二氧化碳直接转化为二甲醚的催化平台，从而开发清洁的船用燃料。该战略旨在到2030年将国际航运的二氧化碳强度至少降低40%，到2050年将温室气体总排放量至少减少50%，两者都是相对于2008年的基线。

For a long time, the search has been on to find a fuel for marine compression engines that is environmentally friendly, stores easily and transported simply. This has been realized in dimethyl ether (DME), a fuel that can be used as a direct substitute for diesel. Unlike compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquid natural gas (LNG), most importantly, DME can be used in compression engines, which substantially impacts the potential applications of this fuel over LNG, CNG, ethanol or methanol. It does not require a particulate filter or a selective catalytic reduction ("SCR") system, so engines are much cheaper and less complicated than standard diesel engines. They are exempt from the filter cleaning and the "add blue" protocols of modern diesel engines. All of this justifies the commencement of work on new technologies for DME production from natural gas.DME is conventionally produced from methane and a biomass feedstocks, which are not net carbon neutral. There are scare few technologies that can direct convert CO2 or natural gas to DME, in high yields and selectivities. The recent hybrid catalytic platform that we have evolved has demonstrated highly effective CO2 storage for subsequently utilisation (CCU) in fuels and polymers. This project will build on these latest findings to design a catalytic platform for the direct conversion of CO2 to DME, leading to the development of clean marine fuels. The strategy aims to reduce the CO2 intensity of international shipping by at least 40% by 2030 and to cut total GHG emissions by at least 50% by 2050, both relative to a 2008 baseline.