N-Methylethanolamine
N-Methylethanolamine is an alkanolamine with the formula CH3NHCH2CH2OH. It is flammable, corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. It is an intermediate in the biosynthesis of choline. With both an amine and a hydroxyl functional groups, it is a useful intermediate in the chemical synthesis of various products including polymers and pharmaceuticals. It is also used as a solvent, for example in the processing of natural gas, where it is used together with its analogs ethanolamine and dimethylethanolamine. Production N-Methylethanolamine is produced industrially by reacting ethylene oxide with excess methylamine in aqueous solution. This reaction yields a mixture of the 1:1 addition product NMEA (1) and - by a further addition of another ethylene oxide - the 1:2 addition product methyl diethanolamine (MDEA) (2): In order to obtain high yields of the desired target product, the reactants are continuously fed to a flow reactor and reacted with a more than two-fold excess of methylamine. In the downstream process steps, the excess methylamine and the water is removed and NMEA (bp. 160 °C) and MDEA (bp. 243 °C) are isolated from the product mixture by fractional distillation. The poly(methyl-ethanolamine) formed by further addition of ethylene oxide to methylethanolamine remains in the distillation bottoms. Properties