Title:Highly Reactive Heterogeneous Nanofibers Catalyst based on [Mo154] Clusters
for Green Aerobic Oxidation of Sulfur Mustard Analogues under Ambient
Conditions
Volume: 19
Issue: 7
Author(s): Reza Haddad*
Affiliation:
- Department of Police Equipment and Technologies, Policing Sciences and Social Studies Institute, Tehran, Iran
Keywords:
Sulfur mustard simulants, aerobic oxidation, polyoxomolybdates, polyacrylonitrile nanofiber, sulfoxide, blister agents.
Abstract:
Background: Due to the increasing chemical and biological threats posed by terrorist
attacks, there is a need to design and prepare nanofibers (NFs) with the ability to neutralize
CWAs. For this purpose polyacrylonitrile NFs and polyoxomolybdate [Mo154] (abbreviated as
PAN NFs/[Mo154]) as a heterogeneous catalyst was prepared by electrospinning method with a
diameter of about 100nm.
Objective: The PAN NFs/[Mo154] catalyze the selective aerobic oxidation of sulfur mustard stimulants,
such as 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (2-CEES) and 2-chloroethyl phenyl sulfide (2-CEPS)
under green and “ambient” conditions (25 °C, 1atm O2) in the presence of ethanol with high
efficiency and selectivity. 2-CEES was selected as a model reaction to optimize the parameters
of the reaction.
Methods: The progress of the reaction was evaluated after different times using GC-FID, GCMS
and TLC. The reaction product was also confirmed by 1H-NMR spectroscopy.
Results: The aerobic oxidation results of 2-CEES showed that PAN NFs/[Mo154] have a conversion
of 98% to produce only a nontoxic product, 2-CEESO with the selectivity of 100% after
45min. The results were performed using [Mo154] without any PAN NFs for comparison whereas
[Mo154] converts only 52% of 2-CEES under identical conditions.
Conclusion: Heterogeneous PAN NFs/[Mo154] catalyst was reused after washing with solvent up
to 5 steps without leaching of [Mo154] from PAN NFs and without any loss in efficiency due to
the morphology of NFs. In addition to the recovery of PAN NFs/[Mo154] in different cycles, the
use of FT-IR, UV-Vis and TEM techniques confirms the stability and morphology of PAN
NFs/[Mo154] after the fifth cycle, 2-CEES oxidation. According to our information, this report is
the first use of PAN NFs enriched with [Mo154] for aerobic oxidation of sulfur mustard simulants.