Practical TEMPO-Mediated Oxidation of Alcohols using Different Polymer-Bound Co-Oxidants

Abstract

Hypochlorite and chlorite exchange resins are evaluated as co-oxidants or oxidants, respectively, for the oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes, ketones or carboxylic acids. Polymer-bound hypochlorite can act as a co-oxidant in TEMPO-mediated oxidations of alcohols. The formation of aldehydes only works under weakly acidic conditions. However, the cheap hypochlorite exchange resin is less efficient as co-oxidant compared to the use of ionically immobilised bisacetoxybromate(I) anions. In contrast, the chlorite exchange resin is a highly potent co-oxidant for the preparation of carboxylic acids from the corresponding primary alcohols in the presence of TEMPO. It is demonstrated that in this case also the resin acts as a polymer-bound co-oxidant for both oxidation steps. Yields are commonly excellent as is also demonstrated for examples taken from natural product synthesis which include acid labile glycosides. In most cases, work-up of this heavy metal-free oxidation is kept to a minimum. It often includes filtration followed by removal of the solvent.