Recent advances in homogeneous transition metal-catalyzed aerobic alcohol oxidations

The latest developments and the key initial discoveries in the area of homogeneous, metal-catalyzed aerobic oxidation of alcohols are presented. The use of molecular oxygen as the stoichiometric oxidant is suggested to be advantageous because it is inexpensive, readily available, and finally produces benign byproducts such as H2O. While several systems have been developed for the Co-catalyzed aerobic alcohol oxidations but several limitations remain because most secondary alcohols are converted to ketones and primary alcohols are oxidized to the carboxylic acid. The application of nontraditional organic solvents which can allow simple product purification and catalyst recycling, presents an appealing alternative to the use of traditional organic solvents. The use of bimetallic systems can offer the advantage of one metal activating the alcohol while the other activates molecular oxygen preventing catalyst decomposition and thus more efficient catalysis.