Improved Bimetallic Cobalt-Manganese Catalysts for Selective Oxidative Cleavage of Morpholine Derivatives

Catalytic methods for the site-selective scission of C(sp(3))-C(sp(3)) bonds remain scarcely explored in contrast to the vast literature on C-C coupling. In view of this, we report a means of oxidative C-C single-bond cleavage in morpholines, made possible by a synergy between cobalt and manganese catalysts using air as a benign oxidant. We demonstrate the synthetic utility of this system with the late-stage oxidative cleavage of Linezolid.