N,N-Dimethylformamide by carbonylation of dimethylamine (50 kt/a, sodium methoxide in methanol)

One-step liquid-phase carbonylation of dimethylamine with CO in methanol on a sodium methoxide catalyst, in-situ catalyst deactivation and salt filtration, methanol/DMA recovery with recycle and vacuum finishing of DMF. Concept stage, assumed basis, preliminary gate-to-gate LCI.

Calculation maturity: not assessedDesign maturity: Concept (research)Not independently reviewedNitrogen organicsReport a problem with this process
Research outputNot engineering advice and not an approved design: do not use it for construction, operation or safety decisions. What this means

Anhydrous dimethylamine and a sodium methoxide solution in methanol are mixed with the recovered methanol/DMA recycle and fed to a liquid-phase loop reactor that takes up CO (90 C, 22 bar; conversion 98.5 % of the DMA per pass and 95 % of the CO to DMF, as in the open patent US 4,098,820). At the end of the reaction the catalyst is converted under CO to insoluble sodium formate and dimethyl ether (the mechanism of US 4,354,041); the vent takes the excess CO, inerts and the ether to a thermal oxidiser. The salt is filtered, methanol and DMA are distilled off and recycled with a small purge, and DMF is distilled overhead under vacuum away from a heavy residue.

All values are concept estimates. The reactor rests on sourced conversions (no kinetics); the separator and column splits and the duties are short-cut values from an independent script, because no property package of ChemE-as-Code covers DMF, methanol, DMA and sodium salts yet. See DESIGN.md for every assumption and gated step.

Capacity
50 kt/a DMF (ASSUMED)
Operation
8,000 h/a
Location
generic (not chosen)
Engineering gates
Concept and feasibility (no results yet)
Maintainers
Artur Schweidtmann
Design basis and assumptions (8)
  • Reactor 363.15 K and 2200 kPa(a), DMA conversion 98.5 % per pass, 95 mol% of the CO fed ends in DMF: US 4,098,820 Example 1 (given; D-005). The rest of the CO is vented (methyl formate formation not modelled, ASSUMED).
  • ASSUMED DMA:methanol 2.3:1 by weight in the reactor feed, from US 4,098,820 Example 1 (D-005).
  • ASSUMED catalyst fully deactivated in situ to sodium formate and dimethyl ether (US 4,354,041 mechanism), 99 % of the salt filtered, wet cake 25 wt% liquor (D-007, D-008).
  • ASSUMED all CO, N2, H2 and DME leave in the reactor vent with 3 mol% methanol, 0.2 mol% DMA and 0.2 mol% DMF; nothing dissolved flashes later (D-008).
  • ASSUMED sharp splits in C-201 (all DMA and methanol overhead except the product's 100 ppm methanol; 0.1 % of the DMF overhead) and C-202 (1 % of its DMF feed to the residue), reflux ratios 1.0 and 0.5 (D-009).
  • ASSUMED compressor isentropic efficiency 0.75, pump efficiency 0.6, liquid heat capacity 2.2 kJ/(kg K); loop pump 30 kW, column pumps and vacuum 25 kW (D-010).
  • ASSUMED dry feeds: no water, no CO2, no methyl formate, no formic acid, no trimethylamine in the model (D-004, D-005).
  • All flows and duties are concept estimates from a short-cut balance (scripts/dmf_balance.py), not a qualified simulation; accuracy not stated (D-006).

From process/design-basis.yaml.

Engineering model

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Drawing of the process (preview)Open the engineering model

The interactive model (drawings, streams, 3D) is made for larger screens.

Snapshot of c3ab348, cheme-as-code 1.6.0.

What goes in and out

In

  • DimethylamineFeedstockfeed:DMA: anhydrous dimethylamine (e.g. methylamines-1), 0.624 kg/kg DMF
  • Carbon monoxideFeedstockfeed:CO: carbon monoxide 99.5 mol% from a syngas CO separation unit, 0.407 kg/kg
  • Sodium methoxideFeedstockfeed:CAT: catalyst: sodium methoxide 30 wt% in methanol, counted by mass of the solution
  • NitrogenFeedstockN2 impurity of the CO feed (0.3 mol%, ASSUMED); the feed itself is carbon monoxide 99.5 mol% and the main raw material is dimethylamine (feed:DMA), both listed above
  • HydrogenFeedstockH2 impurity of the CO feed (0.2 mol%, ASSUMED)

Out

  • N,N-DimethylformamideMain productDMF product to storage
  • NitrogenEmissionInerts of the CO feed in the reactor vent (product:VENT, to a thermal oxidiser, a waste exchange)

Utilities: Electricity (CO compressor, pumps, vacuum system (ASSUMED electric drives)), Steam (MP steam 1100 kPa(a), methanol/DMA recovery column reboiler), Steam (LP steam 450 kPa(a), DMF finishing column reboiler), Cooling water (25/35 C (ASSUMED))

Show in the process graph

Reactions

IdAs writtenReactionOther processes
CAT_DEACTCH3ONa + CH3OH + CO → HCOONa + CH3OCH3CH3NaO+CH4O+COCHNaO2+C2H6O
DMF_SYN(CH3)2NH + CO → HCON(CH3)2C2H7N+COC3H7NO

Each reaction's page has the conversion, heat of reaction, catalyst and sources this process states, next to those of other processes with the same reaction. All reactions

Life cycle assessment

Footprint not publishedThe process changed since the LCA was last run; its values return once it is run again. Method, functional unit and inventory are below.
Method and data
Goal
Preliminary gate-to-gate life cycle inventory of N,N-dimethylformamide by one-step carbonylation of dimethylamine, for the concept stage: which raw materials, utilities, wastes and emissions one kg of DMF needs, traceable to the flowsheet streams. No impact result is claimed: the backgrounds are connected in a later stage.
Functional unit
1 kg DMF product (1 kg N,N-Dimethylformamide)
Boundary
gate-to-gate
Characterisation
Factors kept with the process · GWP100
Data quality
No factors
Result
partial screening carbon footprint · 11 data gaps

Inventory per 1 kg DMF product (12 flows)

FlowPhaseDirectionQuantityUnitProvenance
Dimethylamine, anhydrous (from methylamines-1)operationinput0.6244kgassumed
Carbon monoxide 99.5 mol% (from a syngas CO separation unit)operationinput0.4074kgassumed
Sodium methoxide 30 wt% in methanol (catalyst)operationinput0.01584kgassumed
Electric poweroperationinput0.04314kWhassumed
MP steam 1100 kPa(a)operationinput0.2078kWhassumed
LP steam 450 kPa(a)operationinput0.2229kWhassumed
DMF product to storageoperationoutput1kgassumed
Reactor vent gas to thermal oxidiseroperationoutput0.02214kgassumed
Sodium formate filter cake to disposaloperationoutput0.007896kgcalculated
Methanol purge (with DMA) to recovery or incinerationoperationoutput0.007372kgcalculated
Heavy residue of the DMF column to incinerationoperationoutput0.01016kgassumed
Cooling water returnoperationoutput0.8811kWhassumed

Computed by ChemE-as-Code from lca/README.md, lca/dataset.yaml, lca/factors.yaml, lca/gaps.csv, lca/inventory.csv, lca/lca.yaml, lca/mappings.yaml, lca/results.csv, lca/results.md.

In the open LCI database (cheme-as-code-atlas-preview-c3ab348) as N,N-Dimethylformamide, DMF product to storage Preliminary.

Download it for Brightway, openLCA and other tools.

In the LCI database: system model, datasets and KPIs against the benchmarks

In the LCI database

Status
Preliminary 6 unmapped exchanges. Some exchanges have no background mapping yet: they are exported unlinked and count no burden, so the inventory is incomplete.
System model
attributional, cut-off (methodology 1.1.0)
Allocation
mass (single-output, from default) · product:DMFP 100 %
Allocation findings
none
Change report
Not available: this build has no change report against an earlier release.
Dataset pages
N,N-Dimethylformamide, DMF product to storage Preliminary

KPI benchmark positions: not available (no benchmarked KPI for this process's datasets).

Maturity and review

Design maturity Concept (claimed): An idea or first flowsheet; numbers are rough. Concept PFD with closed mass and component balances in every block and step and element-balanced reactions (cheme validate, cheme process streams). cheme maturity reaches no level: the capacity and feed flows are assumed (no published plant basis), the catalyst deactivation conversion is assumed, and the separator, filter and column splits are specified values from scripts/dmf_balance.py. Energy closure is evaluable for the CO compressor only (closed); the liquid units are gated on a qualified polar property package. Not reviewed. Main products and feeds are listed under chemistry with their chemicals registry entries (issue #251).

Calculation maturity, from the checked evidenceNot assessed

The process has no maturity report (cheme maturity, checks/maturity.json), so no calculation maturity is established.

No level shownThe design maturity (Concept) is the manifest's claim, not evidence. A level appears here once the process's repository holds a current report from cheme maturity --write.

Artifact completeness

Which deliverables exist. They never raise a calculation maturity level: a drawing from unchecked numbers is still unchecked.

Not reported without a maturity report.

Independent review

Not independently reviewed

No independent engineering review yet. Automated checks passing is not a review.

Set by people only. Reaching a calculation maturity level or passing automated checks is not an independent review or an approval.

Where the evidence comes from
Report
processes/dmf-1/checks/maturity.json (not in the library)
Design basis
process/design-basis.yaml
Method
How ChemE-as-Code checks the levels (requirement by requirement)

Open items

0 open items · 0 closed

New action itemNew engineering holdNew technical queryNew design changeAll issues

Sources

Engineering project
N,N-Dimethylformamide · cheme-as-code>=0.8
Library version
c3ab348 (process last changed in c3ab348)
Drawings rendered by
cheme 1.6.0 (pyDEXPI 2.1.0)
Data
Catalog record (JSON) · CC-BY-4.0
Files
View the files on GitHub · change history and authors

References

How to cite

For the data, cite the Process Atlas paper; for the platform that builds and checks it, the ChemE-as-Code paper.

Schweidtmann, A. M. & Weber, J. M. (2026, in preparation). Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title).

For this process: "N,N-Dimethylformamide by carbonylation of dimethylamine (50 kt/a, sodium methoxide in methanol)", ChemE-as-Code process library, version c3ab348.

BibTeX
@unpublished{schweidtmann_process_atlas,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M. and Weber, Jana M.},
  title = {{Process Atlas: an open, git-native, reproducible library and life cycle inventory of chemical processes (working title)}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://atlas.cheme-as-code.org},
  note = {in preparation}
}

Schweidtmann, A. M. (2026, in preparation). ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for AI-Accelerated Chemical Process Engineering (working title).

BibTeX
@unpublished{schweidtmann_cheme_as_code,
  author = {Schweidtmann, Artur M.},
  title = {{ChemE-as-Code: An Open-Source Platform for AI-Accelerated Chemical Process Engineering (working title)}},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://cheme-as-code.org},
  note = {in preparation}
}