Catalytic Aerobic Oxidation of Organic Compounds

Catalytic aerobic oxidation employs molecular oxygen as the terminal oxidant to convert a wide range of organic substrates—most notably C–H bonds adjacent to heteroatoms or aromatic rings—into valuable oxygenated products such as alcohols, ketones, aldehydes and carboxylic acids. The field spans transition-metal catalysis (iron, copper, manganese, cobalt), organocatalysis (nitroxyl radicals, hypervalent iodine composites), photocatalysis and emerging electrocatalytic methods. Mechanistic paradigms include radical-chain propagation, metal-oxo insertion and proton-coupled electron transfer, often mediated by redox shuttles known as electron transfer mediators. Key performance metrics are catalyst turnover number and turnover frequency, selectivity towards mono-oxygenation and atom economy. Practically, aerobic oxidation under mild conditions reduces environmental footprint by minimising waste and hazardous reagents, and finds use in the synthesis of fine chemicals, pharmaceutical intermediates and agrochemical building blocks. Challenges that continue to drive research include achieving high chemoselectivity in complex molecular settings, suppression of over-oxidation, stabilisation of active species and scalability under process-relevant conditions.

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Catalytic Aerobic Oxidation of Organic Compounds publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in catalytic aerobic oxidation of organic compounds across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Aerobic oxidation: Oxidation using molecular oxygen (O₂) as the terminal oxidant under catalytic conditions.

Benzylic C–H bond: A carbon–hydrogen bond adjacent to an aromatic ring, prone to selective oxidation.

Electron transfer mediator (ETM): A redox-active species that shuttles electrons between a primary catalyst and oxygen, enhancing catalytic turnover.

Turnover frequency (TOF): The number of catalytic cycles a catalyst performs per unit time.

Atom economy: A measure of the fraction of reactant atoms incorporated into the desired product, reflecting process sustainability.

References

1. Photocatalyzed Oxygenation Reactions with Organic Dyes: State of the Art and Future Perspectives. Catalysts (2023).
2. Chemoselective Oxyfunctionalization of Functionalized Benzylic Compounds with a Manganese Catalyst. Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2022).
3. Efficient Aerobic Oxidation of Organic Molecules by Multistep Electron Transfer. Angewandte Chemie (2021).