Topics in Current Chemistry (2019) 377:2
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Abbreviations
AcOH
Acetic acid
Bpy
2,2′‑Bipyridine
CrO 3
Chromium oxide
DMSO
Dimethyl sulfoxide
FEP
Fluorinated ethylene propylene
H 2
Hydrogen
HNO 3
Nitric acid
H 2 O 2
Hydrogen peroxide
HPLC
High performance liquid chromatography
K 2 CO 3
Potassium carbonate
KHMDS Potassium bis(trimethylsilyl)amide
KMnO 4
Potassium permanganate
LED
Light emitting diode
MnO 2
Manganese oxide
Mt/a
Megatonne per annum
N 2
Nitrogen
NaHMDS Sodium bis(trimethylsilyl)amide
NMI
N‑Methylimidazole
NMP
N‑Methyl‑2‑pyrrolidone
O 2
Oxygen
1
O 2
Singlet state oxygen
3
O 2
Triplet state oxygen
P
Pressure
PFA
Perfluoroalkoxy
PTSA
p‑Toluenesulfonic acid
T
Temperature
TBAI
Tetrabutylammonium iodide
TEMPO
2,2,6,6‑Tetramethylpiperidine N‑oxyl
TFA
Trifluoroacetic acid
TfOH
Trifluoromethanesulfonic acid
TMEDA
Tetramethylethylenediamine
1 Introduction
Molecular oxygen (O 2 ) is inexpensive, the most readily available oxidant on Earth,
and completely harmless to the environment. O 2 is therefore perhaps the greenest
reagent available to the organic chemist [1]. Furthermore, O 2 is a nontoxic gas and
is easy to remove after a reaction. Aerobic oxidation reactions are generally very
green because they typically display high atom economy and, in most cases, water is
the only stoichiometric byproduct. Until very recently, classical oxidation methods
using stoichiometric quantities of toxic inorganic oxidants, such as CrO 3 , KMnO 4
and MnO 2 , were favored in organic synthesis, even though these protocols generally
display poor atom economy and use highly energetic oxidants [2]. More recently
adopted oxidation approaches use less toxic oxidants, such as dimethylsulfoxide
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