(671c) Practical and Selective Oxidation and Amination of Alcohols In Flow

The development of clean, selective and atom-efficient reactions has become the new paradigm in organic synthesis, driven by a desire to reduce economic, as well as environmental costs of chemical production. To this effect, the oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones may be considered one of the most challenging reactions, ubiquitous in organic chemistry, yet least efficient. The lack of chemoselective and atom-economical oxidants often make these reactions unattractive, particularly for the large scale synthesis of complex molecules. In this work, we demonstrate a number of new ways of oxidising alcohols using either H₂O₂ or O₂ as an oxidant by performing catalysis in a continuous flow high temperature/pressure reactor, using supported Au and Ru cataysts systems, thus fulfilling several criteria for practical and ‘green’ synthesis. We further demonstrate the utilisation of the intermediate aldehyde in the alkylation of amines without preactivation of alcohols.