Synthesis of 2-Methylaziridine Using SiO2-Based Nanocatalysts via Intramolecular Dehydration in Gas Phase

2-Methyl aziridine which is used as an intermediate in different industries is one of the compounds that recently has attracted many attentions in order to reduce its production cost. This compound is mainly applied in the defense industries as solid fuel missiles. Among the procedures reported for its large scale production, the Wenker procedure has been used widely. However, in recent two decades, this method is replaced by dehydration of alkanol amines on the surface of catalyst supports in the gas phase, because the Wenker procedure suffers from some main drawbacks such as long processing time, costly production and production of large amounts of wastes, etc. In this study, 2-methyl aziridine was prepared from the intramolecular dehydration reaction of isopropanol amine on the surface of SiO2 nanocatalyst in the gas phase; then effects of various parameters including catalyst composition, catalyst component’s ratio, calcination temperature and different operating conditions on the activity of the catalyst was investigated. After choosing the best catalyst with high activity, XRD, TEM, SEM and BET analyses were employed to characterization and identification of the catalyst structure.