Environmentally friendly alkene oxidation

THE CHEMISTRY OF... Environmentally Friendly Alkene Oxidation Methods 530... 

Environmentally Friendly Terminal Oxidants 7 TaUel.1 Asymmetric dihydroxylation of different alkenes using NaOCI as the terminal oxidant.. ... 

By far the most commonly used - though not the most environmentally friendly -solvent is CCl (or more usually water-CCl ). In a classic paper Sharpless et al. showed that oxidation reactions of RuO (and other some Ru-based oxidants) were accelerated by addition of a little acetonitrile to the conventional water-CCl biphasic mixture. It was suggested that the CH3CN might function as a mild donor stabilising a lower oxidation state carboxylato Ru species which could be involved in the catalytic process [260]. A comparative study of CCl, acetone, ethyl acetate, cyclohexane and acetone for cleavage of alkenes and alkynes by RuClg/aq. IO(OH)3/solvent showed that cyclohexane was the most effective [216]. Other solvents sometimes... 

Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to present a survey of the organometallic chemistry and catalysis of rhodium and iridium related to the oxidation of organic substrates that has been developed over the last 5 years, placing special emphasis on reactions or processes involving environmentally friendly oxidants. Iridium-based catalysts appear to be promising candidates for the oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes/ketones as products or as intermediates for heterocyclic compounds or domino reactions. Rhodium complexes seem to be more appropriate for the oxygenation of alkenes. In addition to catalytic allylic and benzylic oxidation of alkenes, recent advances in vinylic oxygenations have been focused on stoichiometric reactions. This review offers an overview of these reactions... 

The epoxidation of alkenes using hydrogen peroxide as an environmentally friendly oxidant has been reviewed... 

R. I. Kureshy, S. Singh, N. H. Khan, S. H. R. Abdi, I. Ahmed, A. Bhatt, R. V. Jasra, Environmentally friendly protocol for enantioselective epoxidation of non-functionalized alkenes catalyzed by recyclable homochiral dimeric Mn(III) salen complexes with hydrogen peroxide and UHP adduct as oxidants, Catal. Lett. 107, 127-130 (2006). 

Alkene epoxidation is a very useful reaction in industry and organic s)mthesis. The resultant epoxides are essential precursors in the s)mthesis of various important substances like plasticizers, perfumes, and epoxy resins [1]. For example, over 5,000,000 and 70,000 metric tonnes of propylene and butene oxides, respectively, are produced per year [2]. Current commercial production of propylene oxide (PO) usually employs the chlorohydrin process or the Halcon process, which gives rise to disposal problem for the resultant salts or large amounts of coproducts. As a result of increasing stringent enviromnent legislation, there is currently much interest in the research and development of environmentally friendly methods for preparation of PO without any coproduct. 

---