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The oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding carbonyl compounds is a pivotal reaction in organic synthesis. Under visible light irradiation, the homogeneous CuCl 2 and cheap solvent oxidized benzyl alcohol into benzaldehyde with a selectivity higher than 95% using molecular oxygen as an oxidant. The formation of a visible light responsive complex between Cu(II) and solvent is responsible for the occurrence of the oxidation of benzyl alcohol. During the photocatalytic process, molecular oxygen was not incorporated into the final benzaldehyde and only involved in the oxidation of Cu(I) into Cu(II) in which it served as a terminal hydrogen acceptor to form H 2 O. A similar role of molecular oxygen has also been observed in the heterogeneous TiO 2 photocatalytic system. The understanding of the role of molecular oxygen helps us to further design new classes of synthetic organic reactions by photocatalytic processes.
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Meng et al. (2015) studied this question.
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