Resumen del autor, extraído del trabajo. Fuels specifications are becoming more and more stringent as legislation is adopted to improve air quality by reducing emissions. In this well known context, the properties of different oxygenated compounds as high quality products for diesel fuels have been investigated. It was found that linear ethers such as di-n-pentyl-ether (DNPE) display an excellent behavior: blending cetane numbers are comprised between 100 and 150 (increasing up to 220 when used together with typical cetane enhancers), cold flow properties are very attractive, density is low and the ethers are free from sulfur and aromatics. When the ethers are added to a diesel fuel (5-20% vol.) all its properties are substantially improved. Extensive engine tests on DNPE-blended diesel fuels have shown that overall exhaust emissions are reduced; the optimal advantage is achieved when engine tuning is optimized to take full advantage of the presence of oxygen: in this case the trade-off between particulate and NOx is substantially improved due to the presence of oxygen in the DNPE molecule. DNPE can be produced on a large scale in a very selective way from n-butane: the relative process has been developed. An overwiew of other attractive oxygenated molecules and future perspectives will be also given.