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CATALYTIC OXIDATION OF ALCOHOLS AND EPOXIDATION OF OLEFINS WITH HYDROGEN PEROXIDE AS OXIDANT
Citation:
SahleDemessie*, E AND U R. Pillai**. CATALYTIC OXIDATION OF ALCOHOLS AND EPOXIDATION OF OLEFINS WITH HYDROGEN PEROXIDE AS OXIDANT. Presented at AIChE, Austin, TX, November 07 - 12, 2004.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is an ideal oxidant of choice for these oxidations due to economic and environmental reasons by giving water as a by-product. Two catalysts used are vanadium phosphorus oxide (VPO) and Fe3+/montmorillonite-K10 catalyst prepared by ion-exchange method at a pH of 4, are found to be suitable for the selective oxidation of a variety of secondary aliphatic, alicyclic and aromatic alcohols to the corresponding ketones with H2O2. Calcined VPO catalysts in a relatively mild condition with H2O2 under a nitrogen atmosphere gave an unprecedented and highly efficient oxidation of cyclohexane to cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone is accomplished over. The VPO/ H2O2 oxidation method are found to be suitable for the selective oxidation of secondary alcohols to the corresponding ketones, while aromatic alcohols form mainly secondary or over oxidation products.
Hydrogen peroxide in the presence of hydroxyapatite is found to be an excellent method for epoxidation of olefins and a,b-unsaturated ketones.. The catalyst is active and reusable for the selective epoxidation of a variety of olefins and olefinic ketones under a relatively mild condition. It is also found that the reactivity of less reactive enones can be significantly improved by the addition of a surfactant when methanol is employed as the solvent. Epoxidation of carbon-carbon double bonds is of pivotal importance in organic chemistry due to the wide ranging applications of the highly regioselective ring opening and other reactions of epoxides in the synthesis of a variety of functionalized products.
Detail reaction mechanism studies help to understand the reactions redox cycles. The current development could further increase the interest in the use of H2O2 as a green oxidant for specific organic transformations.