Photochemistry of Dimethyl Ether at 1470 Å

Abstract
The room temperature vacuum uv photolysis of dimethyl ether at 1470 Å has been investigated. The main products were found to be H2, H2CO, C2H6, and CH4. In addition, some CH3OCH2CH2OCH3 and CH3CH2OCH3 were identified. The effects of free radical scavengers (C2D4 and H2S) and added inert gas (C2F6) were studied. Molecular elimination processes were found to account for a relatively small fraction of the total product yield. A mechanism has been proposed to account for the major experimental observations.