Aerobic oxidation of alcohols catalyzed by an efficient heterogeneous mixed metal hydroxide catalyst

Abstract

Aerobic alcohol oxidation is one of the important reactions of organic chemistry used both in academic research and in many industries such as medicine, cosmetics and food. Aldehydes, carboxylic acids and ketones resulting from alcohol oxidation are encountered as intermediates or final products. However, some oxidation methods developed to date have drawbacks such as expensiveness, being hazardous to human health and the environment, and having low sustainability. For this reason, Fe0.6Mn0.4(OH)x mixed metal hydroxide catalyst was developed in a collaborative work by the Ozensoy and Türkmen research groups by avoiding these drawbacks and was first used in the C-H activation reaction giving successful results. In this project, alcohol oxidation reactions were carried out using the same catalyst. Optimized reaction conditions were found by the model reaction of conversion from benzhydrol to benzophenone. Then, substrates with different electron withdrawing and donating groups attached to benzhydrol were tested along with benzyl alcohol and 1-phenylethanol derivatives. Finally, an attempt was made to obtain information about the working mechanism of the catalyst by performing a kinetic isotope effect experiment and various control experiments.