The highly oxygenated hydrocarbon triethylene glycol dimethyl ether or triglyme (CH 3 O-(C 2 H 4 O-) 3 CH 3 ) was found to efficiently reduce NO x under lean conditions over Ag/Al 2 O 3 , but gave a low NO x conversion over Cu-ZSM-5. Furthermore, triglyme showed an extraordinary promoting effect when added together with propene as reducing agent for NO x over Ag/Al 2 O 3 at low temperature. This is most likely due to that triglyme promotes the activation of propene.