Electrolytic Preparation Of 1, 1-Dinitroethane And Its Application

A new electrolytic method for the preparation of 1,1-dinitroethane was studied. Several compounds were used to modify electrodes and as redox reagents, and some factors to influence the yield were studied. The yield of 1,1-dinitroethane could be reached to 21.4% when ethylenediamine was used to modify the electrode for an hour, and the electrolytic time, current density were 108min and 1.0A, respectively. While ethylenediamine was used as Redox reagent, and the electrolytic time, current density, the ratio of of nitroethane to ethylenediamine (mol) were 58min, 2.0A and 3, respectively, the yield of 1,1-dinitroethane could be reached to 19.0%.The methyl 4, 4-dinitropentanoate was synthesized by the Michael addition of potassium dinitroethane with methyl acrylate in the presence of tetrabutyl ammonium chloride as phase-transfer catalyst (PTC) and the product of the addition reaction could be used as cetane number improver in diesel fuels. The IR and GC/MS technique were used to characterize the structure of the product, and some factors to influence the yield were studied. Several PTCs were investigated, but only tetrabutyl ammonium chloride did the preferable yields. The yield of addition product (methyl 4,4-dinitropentanoate) could be reached to 79.0%, when reaction time, reaction temperature, the molar ratio of potassium dinitroethane to methyl acrylate, the the molar ratio of water to potassium dinitroethane and the percentage of tetrabutyl ammonium chloride (based on potassium dinitroethane) were 0.5hrs, 25~45℃,1:3, 20:1 and 0.25%~0.5%, respectively.