The Novolyte family of glycol diethers (glymes) are the preferred solvents for a wide variety of chemical reactions. Higher yields, improved selectivity, and lower-cost product purification are often achieved. Waste is further reduced by recycling. Novolyte's glymes offer a wide range of boiling points:
Glymes are saturated polyethers with no other functional groups; hence, they are aprotic polar compounds which are relatively inert chemically. These features also account for their excellent solvent properties. For example, most glymes are completely miscible with both water and hydrocarbon solvents. Like other oxygen containing solvents, they tend to solvate cations. This leaves anions active, so that for reactions involving basic reagents, the use of glymes as solvents and reaction media can greatly enhance reaction rates.
The all-ether structure produces only weak associations between glyme molecules and is responsible for the low viscosity and excellent wetting properties of these materials—an important plus in many applications.
A further structural feature of glymes that contributes significantly to their usefulness involves the arrangement of oxygen atoms as ether linkages at small and regular intervals. The model of the diglyme molecule above illustrates this periodic recurrence of oxygen atoms separated by two carbon atoms. This stearic arrangement—analogous to that of interesting but expensive crown ethers—gives glymes the ability to form complexes with many cations, making them excellent for organometallic reactions.
Absorption Refrigeration & Heat Pumps
Glymes are useful as the solvent in the design of sorption heat pumps and in absorption refrigeration units. Heat pumps using chlorodifluoromethane(R-22), methyl amine or trifluoroethanol with various glymes have been patented.
Polyglyme is useful as a gas absorption and purification solvent. Novolyte's polyglyme is used extensively to purify natural gas, due to its effectiveness at selectively absorbing acid gases such as H2S, SO2 and CO2. Polyglyme is often used instead of, or in combination with gas absorbing amines to achieve targeted purity levels at high energy efficiencies.
Refrigeration absorption fluids using glymes as solvents in various compositions are well known. Glymes also are useful in working fluids for solar absorption refrigeration units.