Dimethyl carbonate turned into a big chemical - part 1

Know DMC

Dimethyl carbonate (DMC) is an important organic chemical intermediate. Because its molecular structure contains carbonyl, methyl, methoxyl and carbonyl methoxyl, it can be widely used in organic synthesis reactions such as carbonylation, methylation, methoxylation and carbonyl methylation, and is used in the production of polycarbonate, isocyanate and other chemical products. As DMC is non-toxic, it can be used as methylating agent or carbonylation agent instead of highly toxic phosgene, methyl chloroformate, dimethyl sulfate and so on. As a solvent, DMC can replace freon, trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, benzene, xylene and other paints and cleaning solvents. In addition, DMC can also be used as detergent, surfactant and softener additives.

Despite its wide range of uses, existing processes and production costs make it difficult for dimethyl carbonate to become a major chemical product.The main problems are as follows: first, although electrolyte, developer, coating and adhesive of lithium battery have been widely used, it is difficult to be scaled up; second, the more mature propylene oxide route produced propylene glycol market is difficult to develop, the two products often appear "lame";
Third, the premise for gasoline additives must have a large reduction in cost, but the reality is difficult to do; fourth, it is used as raw material for polycarbonate synthesis. The purity and quantity of propylene (ethyl) carbonate ester must meet the requirements of the conditional follow-up device. Therefore, the process development route and use of dimethyl carbonate have been two hot spots in the industry. These problems will be solved with the production of this large-scale device.

As a gasoline additive, DMC can improve its octane number and oxygen content, and then improve its anti-knock property. DMC has the properties of high oxygen content (oxygen content in the molecule is up to 53%), excellent octane number improvement (octane number is up to 105), no phase separation, low toxicity and rapid biodegradation, so that the amount of DMC used in gasoline to reach the same oxygen content is 4.5 times less than methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE). Therefore, DMC will become one of the most potential gasoline additives to replace MTBE.

However, to replace MTBE, volume and price must be satisfied. China's gasoline consumption is at the level of 130 million tons, MTBE consumption is 10 million tons, even if a part of the replacement, the production of dimethyl carbonate must reach several million tons. Obviously, the yield of dimethyl carbonate under existing processes is not even remotely different.