Water and methanol are two unavoidable by-products for synthesis of polyoxymethylene dimethyl ethers (PODE_n) from dimethoxymethane (DMM) and paraformaldehyde (PF), but their effects have not been clearly studied. As DMM decomposes with water and is formed with methanol, the decomposition ratio of DMM is a key quantity to describe the effects of water and methanol. Using this quantity, a simple and accurate method was proposed for calculating CH₂O conversion and a complete model of Schulz-Flory (SF) distribution was established in the presence of water/methanol, both of which were validated experimentally. Then the effects of water and methanol were investigated in detail. The presence of water and methanol had complicated effects on equilibrium of the reaction, and both significantly decreased the yield of PODE_3-5. These results showed that both water and methanol should be removed from the recycling stream in an industrial plant to enhance the efficiency of the reactor.

水和甲醇是由二甲氧基甲烷 (DMM) 和多聚甲醛 (PF)合成聚甲醛二甲醚 (PODE _n ) 的两种不可避免的副产物，但它们的影响尚未得到明确研究。由于 DMM 与水分解并与甲醇形成，因此 DMM 的分解率是描述水和甲醇效果的关键量。使用这个量，提出了一种简单而准确的方法来计算 CH ₂O 转化率和 Schulz-Flory (SF) 分布的完整模型是在水/甲醇存在的情况下建立的，两者都经过实验验证。然后详细研究了水和甲醇的影响。水和甲醇的存在对反应的平衡有复杂的影响，两者都显着降低了PODE _3-5的产率。这些结果表明，水和甲醇都应该从工厂的再循环流中去除，以提高反应器的效率。