Can Interstellar CH3OCH3 + H+ Lead to Protonated Acetaldehyde CH3CHOH+?

In the astrochemical databases, such as KIDA and UMIST, several thousands of reactions are reported and serve the community in building astrochemical models. However, the reliability of some reactions can be questionable when they include curious atomic rearrangements. Those reactions could mislead the model users if they turn out to be wrong. In this context, a potentially major formation pathway for acetaldehyde, through its protonated form and involving dimethyl ether and H ⁺ , was present and recently withdrawn from the KIDA database. In this study, it is proven that this reaction, CH ₃ OCH ₃ + H ⁺ , is indeed not a reasonable way of forming protonated acetaldehyde.