Gold as a Catalyst for the Ring Opening of 2,5-Dimethylfuran

Recently there has been considerable interest in the use of supported gold as catalysts for oxidation reactions [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. This is due to its high activity and the green nature of using catalysis for chemical transformations. Studies have shown that cyclohexene and cyclooctene can be oxidised to their respective epoxides using supported gold catalysts [ 7 ]. High selectivity can be achieved to the epoxide by tuning the reaction conditions, primarily the solvent. Hetrogeneous catalysis is a key process in the manufacture of a large range of bulk and fine chemicals. Since the discovery that supported Au nanoparticles can be used in catalysis [ 8 , 9 ] there has been increased interest in the application of Au in oxidation catalysis. Supported gold catalysts have been shown to be highly stable under oxidation reaction conditions and nano-particulate gold on a range of oxide supports has been used for a range of applications such as CO oxidation [ 10 , 11 , 12 ], CO oxidation in the presence of H 2 , H 2 O and CO 2 for fuel cells [ 13 , 14 ], the oxidation of alkenes [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 ] and alcohols [ 19 , 20 ], including polyols such as glycerol [ 21 ]. Gold supported on TiO 2 and TS-1 have been shown to be very active for the epoxidation of propene to propene oxide in the presence of H 2 and O 2 via the formation of a peroxy intermediate [ 22 , 23 ]. However, the use of a sacrificial reductant is not ideal for green applications, and the use of pure O 2 is preferred. Caps and co-workers [ 24 ] have shown that supported gold catalysts can be used to convert trans-stilbene into trans-stilbene oxide in the presence of molecular oxygen. In this case titania was found to be the a better support than carbon or iron oxide in terms of epoxide yield.