Sustainable and Selective Aerobic Oxidative C-C Bond Cleavage of Vicinal Diols under Near-Room-Temperature Condition

The selective oxidative C-C bond cleavage is essential for the production of functional molecules. Herein, a sustainable and efficient heterogeneous catalytic protocol is developed to facilitate the aerobic oxidative C-C bond cleavage, in which the selective conversion of vicinal diols to the corresponding aldehydes was achieved under a near-room-temperature condition with NH3-treated cobalt catalysts. Hydrobenzoin was selectively transformed to generate benzaldehyde with the solid ComOn/C-N catalyst, where the conversion and product selectivity reached 96.7 and 99.0% under an oxygen atmosphere, respectively. Further investigations revealed that the high catalytic activity of the catalyst is contributed to numerous oxygen defects, which lead to efficient generation of active O-1(2) species. Moreover, the ComOn/C-N catalyst still exhibited a very high catalytic activity after it was continuously recycled five times. Finally, the oxidative cleavages of the C-C bond in the different 1,2-diols were also studied where more than 96.5% conversion of substrates and 99% selectivity of aldehydes were acquired under the optimal conditions.