Effective oxidation of 1,2-cyclooctene by oxo-vanadium(IV) tetradentate Schiff base complexes under 1 atmosphere of molecular oxygen

Development of methods for the understanding of chemical reactivity of high-valent metal-oxo species with respect to organic substrates is important. Here we report a high yield, high TON conversion of cyclooctene using VO (Schiff base) complexes (Figure 1) as catalyst and O₂ as oxidant in MeCN under mild conditions. The results show that catalytic activity increases with a decrease in the number of electron-donating groups. At higher concentration of catalyst and shorter reaction time, a low yield but high selectivity of epoxide was observed.