Aerobic Photo Oxidation of Alcohols by Tetrabutylammonium Tribromide (TBATB)

The oxidation of alcohols to the corresponding carbonyl compounds is a key reaction in organic synthesis. The selective oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes orketones is a very important organic transformation, especially in preparing of some important precursors and intermediates for drugs, fine chemicals, vitamins and fragrances [1]. Acyclic and cyclic acetals of various carbonylcompounds were obtained in excellent yields under a mildreaction condition in the presence of trialkyl orthoformateand a catalytic amount of tetrabutylammonium tribromide(TBATB) in absolute alcohol [2]. In this work, we reported aerobic photo oxidation of alcohols by TBATB to corresponding carbonyl compound at room temperature. The carbonyl compound was characterized by 1HNMR,13CNMR, Gas Chromatography (GC) and FT-IR. This method presented high yield, chemoselective, and safe, operationally simple under mild reaction conditions, fast and cost-effective. Also, this investigationshowed that we used light as a green and available source.