Recent progress in catalytic oxygenation of aromatic C-H groups with the environmentally benign oxidants H2O2and O2

Developing efficient approaches for the selective oxygenation of aromatic C-H groups has been a challenging goal, interesting from both fundamental and practical perspectives. Designing catalyst systems for the direct production of phenol from benzene holds significant practical promise; on the contrary, novel strategies for the late-stage selective introduction of oxygen into aromatic rings of complex organic molecules could be useful for the synthesis of fine chemicals, including biologically active compounds. Another aspect of the overall picture is toughening environmental constraints, resulting in a steady increase in the number of catalyst systems relying on environmentally benign oxidants such as H(2)O(2)and O-2. Overall, today, the realm of selective catalytic aromatic C-H oxidations is developing rapidly. This review summarizes the progress made in homo- and heterogeneous catalyst systems of aromatic C-H oxygenations with hydrogen peroxide and molecular oxygen, achieved in the last decade.