Alkali metal cation exchanged Nafion as an efficient micro-environment for oxidation of olefins by singlet oxygen

The utility of alkali metal cation exchanged Nafion beads as an efficient micro-environment for carrying out oxidation of olefins by singlet oxygen was examined with three structurally different olefins, namely, 1,2-dimethylcyclohexene (1), 2-methyl-2-heptene (4) and 2-methyl-4-phenyl-2-butene (7). In this report, a strategy was proposed in which the reactant and the photocatalyst are kept isolated in two different phases throughout the photoreaction and thereby enables easier separation of the products from the reaction mixture. I envisage that this approach can be synthetically useful due to the high mass balance of the photoreaction, reuse of the photocatalyst and easy handling of the reaction media. The investigated photochemical reactions also serve as probes to understand the nature of the reaction domains provided by Nafion matrix.