1-Methylpiperazine

The cyclic diamine 1-methylpiperazine is a pale yellow oil with a boiling point of 286 ºC. It can be synthesized in several ways, including treating 1,4-dimethylpiperazine with Raney nickel (Yuan, Q.-l., et al., 2013). In 1998, M. A. Pericàs and coauthors used it to prepare resin-anchored chiral catalysts.

But the best use of 1-methylpiperazine may be protecting people from mosquito bites. U. R. Bernier and co-workers at the USDA Agricultural Research Service showed that bacteria on human skin form 1-methylpiperazine and other small heterocycles that prevent mosquitoes from recognizing that someone is present. The researchers recently applied for a patent covering this use for the active compounds.