Recent advances in copper-catalyzed oxidation of organic compounds

The copper-catalyzed oxidation of organic compounds has made considerable progress in the recent years. Molecular oxygen, aqueous hydrogen peroxide, tert-butyl hydroperoxide and peroxyesters have been employed as terminal oxidants for this purpose. The use of polymer and solid-supported catalysts, ionic liquids and fluorous biphase systems (FBS) has been demonstrated to facilitate the recyclability of the catalysts. Efforts have been made for the aqueous oxidation processes employing water-soluble copper complexes. Chiral catalysts have been designed and developed for the enantioselective oxidative coupling of 2-naphthols, Baeyer-Villiger oxidation and Kharasch-Sosnovsky reaction with high enantioselectivity. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.