Recyclable Catalyst Reservoir: Oxidation of Alcohols Mediated by Noncovalently Supported Bis(imidazolium)-Tagged 2,2,6,6-Tetramethylpiperidine 1-Oxyl

Organic Synthesis Using Nitroxides

Nitroxides, also known as nitroxyl radicals, are long-lived or stable radicals with the general structure R1R2N-O•. The spin distribution over the nitroxide N and O atoms contributes to the thermodynamic stability of these radicals. The presence of bulky N-substituents R1 and R2 prevents nitroxide radical dimerization, ensuring their kinetic stability. Despite their reactivity toward various transient C radicals, some nitroxides can be easily stored under air at room temperature. Furthermore, nitroxides can be oxidized to oxoammonium salts (R1R2N═O+) or reduced to anions (R1R2N-O-), enabling them to act as valuable oxidants or reductants depending on their oxidation state. Therefore, they exhibit interesting reactivity across all three oxidation states. Due to these fascinating properties, nitroxides find extensive applications in diverse fields such as biochemistry, medicinal chemistry, materials science, and organic synthesis. This review focuses on the versatile applications of nitroxides in organic synthesis. For their use in other important fields, we will refer to several review articles. The introductory part provides a brief overview of the history of nitroxide chemistry. Subsequently, the key methods for preparing nitroxides are discussed, followed by an examination of their structural diversity and physical properties. The main portion of this review is dedicated to oxidation reactions, wherein parent nitroxides or their corresponding oxoammonium salts serve as active species. It will be demonstrated that various functional groups (such as alcohols, amines, enolates, and alkanes among others) can be efficiently oxidized. These oxidations can be carried out using nitroxides as catalysts in combination with various stoichiometric terminal oxidants. By reducing nitroxides to their corresponding anions, they become effective reducing reagents with intriguing applications in organic synthesis. Nitroxides possess the ability to selectively react with transient radicals, making them useful for terminating radical cascade reactions by forming alkoxyamines. Depending on their structure, alkoxyamines exhibit weak C-O bonds, allowing for the thermal generation of C radicals through reversible C-O bond cleavage. Such thermally generated C radicals can participate in various radical transformations, as discussed toward the end of this review. Furthermore, the application of this strategy in natural product synthesis will be presented.

Chirality-driven self-assembly: application toward renewable/exchangeable resin-immobilized catalysts

Resin-immobilized catalysts were prepared through chirality-driven self-assembly. The method allows the resin-immobilized catalyst to be regenerated under mild conditions and in situ catalyst exchange to be carried out quantitatively. The uniqueness of the methodology was demonstrated by the preparation of a catalyst for TEMPO oxidation as well as a two-step sequential TEMPO oxidation/aldol condensation sequence enabled by facile catalyst exchange.

Supramolecular Strategies for the Recycling of Homogeneous Catalysts

Supramolecular approaches are increasingly used in the development of homogeneous catalysts and they also provide interesting new tools for the recycling of metal-based catalysts. Various non-covalent interactions have been utilized for the immobilization homogeneous catalysts on soluble and insoluble support. By non-covalent anchoring the supported catalysts obtained can be recovered via (nano-) filtration or such catalytic materials can be used in continuous flow reactors. Specific benefits from the reversibility of catalyst immobilization by non-covalent interactions include the possibility to re-functionalize the support material and the use as "boomerang" type catalyst systems in which the catalyst is captured after a homogeneous reaction. In addition, new reactor design with implemented recycling strategies becomes possible, such as a reverse-flow adsorption reactor (RFA) that combines a homogeneous reactor with selective catalyst adsorption/desorpion. Next to these non-covalent immobilization strategies, supramolecular chemistry can also be used to generate the support, for example by generation of self-assembled gels with catalytic function. Although the stability is a challenging issue, some self-assembled gel materials have been successfully utilized as reusable heterogeneous catalysts. In addition, catalytically active coordination cages, which are frequently used to achieve specific activity or selectivity, can be bound to support by ionic interactions or can be prepared in structured solid materials. These new heterogenized cage materials also have been used successfully as recyclable catalysts.

Synergistic catalysis within core-shell Fe3O4@SiO2 functionalized with triethylene glycol (TEG)-imidazolium ionic liquid and tetramethylpiperidine N-oxyl (TEMPO) boosting selective aerobic oxidation of alcohols

HYPOTHESIS

It is expected that incorporation of 2, 2, 6, 6-tetra-methyl piperidine-N-oxyl radical (TEMPO) and an imidazolium bromide bearing hydrophilic triethylene glycol (TEG) groups on Fe₃O₄@SiO₂ core-shell may not only result in a novel highly water-dispersible/magnetically separable multi-functional catalyst system for metal-free aerobic oxidation of alcohols, which operates through a synergistic relay pathway, but it could potentially provide a strong platform for simultaneous separation and recycling of all components.

EXPERIMENTS

The catalyst was prepared by anchoring TEMPO moieties onto a magnetic core-shell Fe₃O₄@SiO₂ functionalized with an ionic liquid bearing TEG groups. The materials was characterized using transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms, thermal gravimetric analysis, and elemental analysis. The performance of the catalyst was evaluated and quantitatively measured in the aerobic oxidation of alcohols in water.

FINDINGS

The catalyst exhibited excellent and stable colloidal dispersion in water and high performance in the aerobic oxidation of various types of alcohols under metal- and halogen-free reaction conditions. As hypothesized, strong synergistic effect between functionalized components was seen in the described reaction. The catalyst displayed excellent dual-adjustable-selectivity in the oxidation of primary alcohols to either the corresponding aldehydes or carboxylic acids by tuning the reaction solvent and/or reaction time and excellent recycling behavior through a "double-separation-strategy".

Magnetic field controlled C60-TEMPO catalyst for the oxidation of alcohols

TEMPO functionalized C₆₀ fullerene phosphonic acid was grafted onto the surface of magnetic IONPs. The resulting catalyst was employed in oxidation of various primary and secondary alcohols to their corresponding aldehyde or ketone analogues.

Magnetic Nanoparticle Supported Ionic Liquid Phase Catalyst for Oxidation of Alcohols

A new magnetic nanoparticle supported ionic liquid phase (SILP) catalyst containing perruthenate anions was prepared by a multistep procedure. The various analytical techniques such as FT-IR spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, and vibrating sample magnetometer analysis ascertained the successful formation of catalyst. The performance of a magnetically retrievable SILP catalyst was evaluated in the selective oxidation of alcohols. The split test and leaching studies of the SILP catalyst confirmed its heterogeneous nature. In addition, the reusability potential of SILP catalyst was also investigated which revealed its robust activity up to six consecutive cycles.

TEMPO functionalized C60 fullerene deposited on gold surface for catalytic oxidation of selected alcohols

C₆₀TEMPO₁₀ catalytic system linked to a microspherical gold support through a covalent S-Au bond was developed. The C₆₀TEMPO₁₀@Au composite catalyst had a particle size of 0.5-0.8 μm and was covered with the fullerenes derivative of 2.3 nm diameter bearing ten nitroxyl groups; the organic film showed up to 50 nm thickness. The catalytic composite allowed for the oxidation under mild conditions of various primary and secondary alcohols to the corresponding aldehyde and ketone analogues with efficiencies as high as 79-98%, thus giving values typical for homogeneous catalysis, while retaining at the same time all the advantages of heterogeneous catalysis, e.g., easy separation by filtration from the reaction mixture. The catalytic activity of the resulting system was studied by means of high pressure liquid chromatography. A redox mechanism was proposed for the process. In the catalytic cycle of the oxidation process, the TEMPO moiety was continuously regenerated in situ with an applied primary oxidant, for example, O₂/Fe³⁺ system. The new intermediate composite components and the final catalyst were characterized by various spectroscopic methods and thermogravimetry. Graphical abstractᅟ.

Synthesis, characterization and the paramagnetic properties of bottle-brush copolymers with shielding TEMPO radicals

Bottle-brush copolymers PHEMA-g-[(PAA-g-TEMPO)-b-PMA] and PHEMA-g-(PAA-g-TEMPO) with shielding TEMPO radicals were synthesized. The paramagnetic properties in bulk and solution were studied, and the results confirmed that the presence of the outer segment played an important role on the EPR spectra of copolymers.

Design of recyclable TEMPO derivatives bearing an ionic liquid moiety and N,N-bidentate group for highly efficient Cu(i)-catalyzed conversion of alcohols into aldehydes and imines

Recyclable TEMPO derivatives carrying an ionic liquid moiety and N,N-bidentate group are designed for Cu(i)-catalyzed alcohol to aldehyde and imine conversion.

Synergistic catalysis within TEMPO-functionalized periodic mesoporous organosilica with bridge imidazolium groups in the aerobic oxidation of alcohols

Anchoring TEMPO within the nanospaces of a PMO with bridged imidazolium groups led to an powerful bifunctional catalyst (TEMPO@PMO-IL-Br), which showed enhanced activity in the metal-free aerobic oxidation of alcohols.