Regulations controlling diesel exhaust become more exacting with each passing year. Accordingly, diesel fuel properties are constantly being analyzed in an attempt to further reduce fuel emissions. There are many options, most often refinement processes or improving the cetane number. Essentially, short and branched ethers (used in gasoline) have a good octane number but poor cetane number, while those ethers used in diesel are linear and have a comparatively long chain (ideally 9 or more carbons). Di-n pentyl ether (DNPE) has shown most effective in reducing emissions, and is also relatively simple to synthesize via the bimolecular dehydration of 1-pentanol on acid catalysts, as seen below.

However, the dehydration reaction results in quite a lot of byproducts, including other ethers. As such, a selective catalyst is required to favor production of DNPE by reducing the amount of alkenes. Increased selectivity can be accomplished via gel-type acidic resins at a reaction temperature of 150°C. The article I looked at analyzed the selectivity and reaction rate of the dehydration of 1-pentanol to DNPE using a gel-type resin at various temperatures and alcohol flow rates.

Alkenes are named as if they were alkanes, but the “-ane” suffix is changed to “-ene”. If the alkene contains only one double bond and that double bond is terminal (the double bond is at one end of the molecule or another) then it is not necessary to place any number in front of the name.

butane: C₄H₁₀ (CH₃CH₂CH₂CH₃)
butene: C₄H₈ (CH₂=CHCH₂CH₃)

If the double bond is not terminal (if it is on a carbon somewhere in the center of the chain) then the carbons should be numbered in such a way as to give the first of the two double-bonded carbons the lowest possible number, and that number should precede the “ene” suffix with a dash, as shown below.

correct: pent-2-ene (CH₃CH=CHCH₂CH₃)
incorrect: pent-3-ene (CH₃CH₂CH=CHCH₃)
The second one is incorrect because flipping the formula horizontally results in a lower number for the alkene.

If there is more than one double bond in an alkene, all of the bonds should be numbered in the name of the molecule – even terminal double bonds. The numbers should go from lowest to highest, and be separated from one another by a comma. The IUPAC numerical prefixes are used to indicate the number of double bonds.
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