Iron-Catalyzed Aerobic Oxidation of Alcohols: Lower Cost and Improved Selectivity

An aerobic oxidation reaction of alcohols toward aldehydes or ketones using catalytic amounts of Fe(NO3)3·9H2O, 4-OH-TEMPO, and NaCl has been developed. Compared with the former catalytic system with TEMPO developed in this group, the new protocol using 4-OH-TEMPO, which is much cheaper on an industrial scale, accomplished the transformation with a higher selectivity, especially for aliphatic alcohols toward aldehydes. α,β-Unsaturated alkynals or alkynones can be efficiently synthesized from propargyl alcohols, which has been much less studied in the literature.