Radiation-chemical transformations of diethylene glycol dimethyl ether at room temperature and at boiling point

Diethylene glycol dimethyl ether (diglyme) is interesting as a representative of ethers with several oxygen bridges in the molecule and as a model alternative fuel. A comparative study of the diglyme radiolysis at room temperature and at the boiling point was carried out. Boiling facilitates the cleavage of internal C‒O bonds, weakens the cage effect and diglyme regeneration processes, and also favors radical exchange and dimerization reactions. Unlike radiolysis at room temperature, irradiation at the boiling point generates four times less unsaturated fragmentation products and practically does not give disproportionation products of heavy radicals. The yield of radiolytic decomposition of boiling diglyme reaches 15.5 molecules/100 eV, which is almost 1.5 times higher than at room temperature.