Facile, mild and selective silica sulfuric acid catalyzed oxidation of benzylalcohols to benzaldehyde derivatives by potassium peroxodisulfate

An efficient, facile, and mild oxidation of a variety of primary benzylic alcohols to the corresponding aldehydes with potassium peroxodisulfate in the presence of a catalytic amount of sodium chloride and silica sulfuric acid (SSA) in acetonitrile as solvent is reported. It is a renowned fact that potassium peroxodisulfate acts as a powerful oxidizing agent and the control of conditions is difficult. For this purpose, SSA as a mild, efficient and reusable solid acid catalyst was used to afford the carbonyl compounds in excellent yields and short time. The structure of all of the resulting products was confirmed by FT-IR spectroscopy.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v27i1.14