[5][6] It is a colorless, toxic, volatile liquid that is of significant practical interest.
[8] Its derivatives, also referred to as aziridines, are of broader interest in medicinal chemistry.
Aziridine is less basic than acyclic aliphatic amines, with a pKa of 7.9 for the conjugate acid, due to increased s character of the nitrogen free electron pair.
The Nippon Shokubai process requires an oxide catalyst and high temperatures to effect the dehydration.
[7] Aziridine forms a wide variety of polymeric derivatives, known as polyethylenimines (PEI).