Oxidation of secondary alcohols using solid-supported hypervalent iodine catalysts

Abstract

It is shown how secondary alcohols are oxidized to provide the corresponding ketones by use of Oxone® and solid-supported hypervalent iodine catalysts. Under experimentally simple conditions with acetonitrile at elevated temperatures, excellent conversions were achieved with low catalyst loadings (0.2-5 mol%) when employing the conjugates 5 and 6 derived from IBX and IBS. The catalysts are broadly applicable to a range of alcohol substrates. Of primary importance with respect to sustainability issues, the metal-free catalysts are easily removed from the reaction mixture through filtration, and they can be re-used in oxidation processes for multiple times, without loss of catalytic activity.