Catalytic distillation is a new technology pioneered by Unitel for conversion of crude methanol into dimethyl ether.
Unitel has constructed a demonstration plant for using catalytic distillation for dehydration of methanol to make dimethyl ether. This demo plant has a nominal capacity of producing about 12 TPD of DME.
Upon the successful completion of this program, the commercial plant is being configured to produce 200 TPD of DME.