Alternative Energy

A clean, versatile molecule

DME is biodegradable in air, non-corrosive, non-carcinogenic and has no impact on the climate. It emits no soot, sulfur or particulates when burned and outperforms conventional diesel fuel.

It is also clean, colorless and easy to liquefy and transport. What’s more, DME can be made from several types of feedstock.

The most common process is still the dehydration of methanol, itself derived from gas, coal or biomass. But DME can also be directly synthesized using the same resources.

It has other assets as well. DME has the potential to be a uniquely valuable solution in four major areas: as an additive blended into liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for household and industrial applications, as an automotive fuel, as feedstock for the chemical industry and as a fuel in mid-sized power plants.

Total is investing across the board, in research, process optimization, technical standardization and market assessment

We have been working to improve the efficiency of the direct synthesis process since the early 2000s. In 2008, we and eight Japanese partners inaugurated a production plant with a capacity of 80,000 metric tons a year, built in Niigata, Japan, so that we can get to know the local market better and prepare for a broad-based marketing drive.

Total is also a member of the European consortium led by Volvo that is experimenting with the pre-commercial production of DME fuel from second-generation biomass, in our case, a pulp residue known as spent liquor.

Also in 2008, Total kicked off a program in China to test various DME-LPG blends by having selected industrial customers and consumers try them out, through our local LPG sales subsidiary.

At the same time, we and our Japanese partners have been very active since 2007 in the process to draft an international ISO standard to set DME quality standards.