Development and application of new oxidation systems utilizing oxometalate catalysts

This review describes our recent efforts in the development and application of new oxidation systems utilizing oxometalate catalysts. The novel use of heteropoly acid (HPA), an acidic oxometalate catalyst, in hypervalent iodine-mediated oxidations provided an effective strategy to generate cation radical species that enables a variety of direct C-H functionalizations of aromatic compounds. This strategy brought a facile biaryl synthesis and new spirodienone syntheses in aromatic oxidation chemistry. Moreover, this strategy opens up a facile synthetic route to morphinandienone alkaloids. On the other hand, the use of oxometalate catalyst together with poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm)-based polymer in the development of new solid-phase catalyst provided a novel reaction system in water. Due to the characteristic temperature-responsive intelligence of PNIPAAm, this reaction system brought a remarkable acceleration of the reactivity and ease of catalyst recovering in catalytic oxidation that uses hydrogen peroxide or oxygen gas (O2) as primary oxidant. In addition, the recovered solid-phase catalyst could be used for consecutive reactions without any significant loss of its catalytic efficacy.