Oxidation of saturated and unsaturated alcohols promoted by aluminum alkyls and t-butyl hydroperoxide Original Research Article

Saturated and unsaturated alcohols are efficiently converted into the corresponding ketones and epoxy-alcohols by treatment with organic aluminium compounds/t-butyl hydroperoxide systems. In this paper, we have exploited the possibility of using some commercial aluminium alkyls as catalysts for oxidation reactions. Then, since we observed that the increase of alkyls hindrance on aluminium enhances the conversion toward oxidated products, we found of interest to synthesize a more hindered aluminium based compound. The catalytic performance of this latter compound toward oxidation reactions of allylic alcohols was tested and it was found that it is the most attractive both in terms of yield and time of reaction.