Synthesis and application of polyN-hydroxymaleimide as a heterogeneous catalyst in aerobic oxidation reactions

Oxidation is an essential operation in organic synthesis, and a large number of reagents have been developed for a wide variety of oxidative transformations. Unfortunately, most ofthe oxidizing agents are hazardous or toxics. From both an economic and environmental point of view, the quest foreffective catalytic oxidation processes that use clean, inexpensive primary oxidants, such as molecular oxygen1, a green method for oxidative transformation on an industrialscale, remains an important challenge. The combination of Nhydroxy compounds with a variable-valence metal ion likeCo, afford an effective catalytic system for aerobic oxidation of a broad range of organic substrates [2-4]. Most of these systems are monomeric homogenous systems and haveproblems such as difficult work up steps and decomposition in high temperatures. Therefore supporting these systems on astable polymer produce proper heterogeneous polymeric catalyst systems. In this study we report the synthesis and characterization of polyN-hydroxymaleimide as a new heterogeneous polymeric catalyst and the application of this catalyst in some aerobic oxidation reactions.