Given that near-stoichiometric conditions need to be avoided due to explosion potential, the former is usually applied in excess methanol at elevated temperature (~600ºC) while the latter is more suited for excess air at lower temperature (270-400ºC). Dynea holds ownership to both types of technology and has conducted detailed assessment that shows that under the prevailing market and environmental constraints, the silver-based process is the most competitive even though it is based on the application of a shallow bed of pure metal particles.

K.A. Rasmussen supplies high purity Ag catalyst, offers complete recycling and refining of spent material, as well as advanced supports for the particulate bed (Karnet). The process is more than 90% selective, but this is dependent on the reactor design and state of the surface silver species. The lifetime of the catalyst is relatively long, but depends on preparation, the catalyst bed geometry and the reaction conditions.

New developments exist in further control of the reaction conditions and tuning of the particle/bed morphology to further improve selectivity and prevent deactivation. A next step could be the application of supported silver catalysts with the properties optimized to maintain control of the active silver species, the reaction conditions and the transport phenomena involved. Reactor technology that could enable close to stoichiometric reaction mixtures in a safe way represents a significant, but challenging, potential with respect to process intensification.