UV light promoted ‘Metal’/‘Additive’-free oxidation of alcohols: investigating the role of alcohols as electron donors

Abstract

The present study demonstrates the important role of alcohols themselves as electron donors for their oxidative transformations to the corresponding carbonyl compounds in the absence of any metal/oxidant and external photosensitizer.

A bifunctional small molecular photocatalyst with a redox center and a Lewis acid site for one-pot tandem oxidation–acetalization

“…The conversion of benzyl alcohol was obviously inhibited in the presence of CuCl 2 (single electron quencher), p -benzoquinone (˙O 2 − quencher) or NaN 3 ( 1 O 2 quencher), indicating the key role of photogenerated electrons, ˙O 2 − , and 1 O 2 in the reaction process. 39–43 The results of adding tert -butyl alcohol (˙OH quencher) or catalase were consistent with and without the scavenger, which excluded the effect of ˙OH and H 2 O 2 in the reaction. In comparison, the acetalization of benzaldehyde and methanol exhibited a low yield in the presence of TEMPO under an air (11%, Fig.…”

Mechanistic Investigation of Enhanced Catalytic Selectivity toward Alcohol Oxidation with Ce Oxysulfate Clusters

“…Although a similar phenomenon with much lower oxidation reactivity in the dimethyl sulfoxide without any additives was observed, the proposed mechanism is not applicable in our case. 48 We thus believe that the blank catalytic reaction with toluene as solvent is a rather complex system with low selectivity due to the abundance of radicals, while the clusters can inhibit the generation of unwanted radicals and instead direct the reaction to occur on the cluster surface (vide infra).…”

Solar-driven H2O2productionviacooperative auto- and photocatalytic oxidation in fine-tuned reaction media

“…4a and b). Direct activation of BzOH under UV irradiation is known to form an alcohol radical cation and subsequently an alkoxyl radical; 23 however, this was not mainly observed under solar irradiation. As shown in Fig.…”