Platinum-Based Heterogeneous Catalysts for Nitrile Synthesis via Aerobic Oxidative Coupling of Alcohols and Ammonia

Yuliya Preger; Thatcher W Root; Shannon S Stahl

doi:10.1021/acsomega.8b00911

Platinum-Based Heterogeneous Catalysts for Nitrile Synthesis via Aerobic Oxidative Coupling of Alcohols and Ammonia

ACS Omega. 2018 Jun 5;3(6):6091-6096. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.8b00911. eCollection 2018 Jun 30.

Authors

Yuliya Preger¹, Thatcher W Root¹, Shannon S Stahl²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1415 Engineering Drive, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, United States.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1101 University Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, United States.

Abstract

Transition-metal-catalyzed aerobic oxidative coupling of alcohols and ammonia represents an attractive atom-economical synthetic route to prepare nitriles. Heterogeneous platinum catalysts have been widely used for aerobic alcohol oxidation to aldehydes and carboxylic acids but have not been applied to nitrile synthesis. In this work, we show that carbon-supported Pt catalysts are effective for this transformation. Unpromoted Pt is competent with benzylic substrates bearing either electron-donating or electron-withdrawing substituents. Use of both K₂CO₃ and Bi additives accelerates the rate of alcohol oxidation and affords high yields with challenging heterocyclic alcohols.