Tap Water and RO Outlet Water a Novel Greener Route to Catechol Synthesis in H2O2

Dakin oxidation reaction is a widely used reaction for the synthesis of phenolic compounds such as catechol in industry, this is cheap and simple method definitely will attract attentions and find potential application in near future. A new way of synthesizing catechol was developed using the Dakin reaction in a more environmentally friendly way. In fact, aromatic aryl aldehydes can be turned into phenols at room temperature with the help of H2O2 in tap water and RO Outlet water as catalyst. It is amazing that catalytic system doesn’t need activation or any transition metal catalyst, toxic ligand, additive/promoter, base, organic solvent, etc. To find out what this protocol can do, a number of substituted hydroxylated benzaldehydes were tried.