Response Surface Methodology as an Approach for Optimization of the Synthesis of 1-(2-Aminoethyl)-2-imidazolidone

Abstract

Ruthenium loaded on activated carbon pre-treated by HNO3 was used to catalyze the reaction of 1-(2-Aminoethyl)-2-imidazolidone (AEI) synthesized from ethylenediamine, ethanolamine and CO2. Response surface methodology (RSM) based on Box-Behnken design (BBD) was employed to optimize the synthesis of AEI. The statistical analysis results showed that the yield of AEI was significantly affected by the CO2 pressure, reaction temperature and reaction time. According to the results of variance analysis, the value of the determination coefficient of 0.9854 was in reasonable agreement with the “Adj R-Squared” of 0.9666, which means this model can predict the yield of AEI well and can be used to optimize reaction conditions for higher AEI yield. The optimal values of AEI yield predicted by RSM was 84.9% under temperature 206.51?C, CO2 pressure 9.35 Mpa, reaction time 10.11 h, and the verification experiment yield of AEI was 83.1%.