Highly efficient and selective oxidation of various substrates under mild conditions using a lanthanum-containing polyoxometalate as catalyst Original Research Article

A lanthanum-containing polyoxometalate (POM) of DA11[La(PW11O39)2] (denoted as DA-La(PW11)2; DA = Decyltrimethylammonium cation) is highly efficient and selective for oxidation of various substrates including alkenes, alkenols, sulfides, silane and alcohol with only one equiv. H2O2 as oxidant at 25 °C, and the POM catalyst can be easily recovered and reused for ten times without obvious decrease of catalytic activity and the yields for catalyst recovery are all above 95%. The epoxidation of cis-cyclooctene proceeds efficiently in 98% yield with only 0.08 mol% of DA-La(PW11)2, and the turnover number (TON) can reach as high as 1200 at 25 °C.