Sustainable and Selective Aerobic Oxidative C–C Bond Cleavage of Vicinal Diols under Near-Room-Temperature Condition

The selective oxidative C–C bond cleavage is essential for the production of functional molecules. Herein, a sustainable and efficient heterogeneous catalytic protocol is developed to facilitate the aerobic oxidative C–C bond cleavage, in which the selective conversion of vicinal diols to the corresponding aldehydes was achieved under a near-room-temperature condition with NH3-treated cobalt catalysts. Hydrobenzoin was selectively transformed to generate benzaldehyde with the solid ComOn/C–N catalyst, where the conversion and product selectivity reached 96.7 and 99.0% under an oxygen atmosphere, respectively. Further investigations revealed that the high catalytic activity of the catalyst is contributed to numerous oxygen defects, which lead to efficient generation of active 1O2 species. Moreover, the ComOn/C–N catalyst still exhibited a very high catalytic activity after it was continuously recycled five times. Finally, the oxidative cleavages of the C–C bond in the different 1,2-diols were also studied where more than 96.5% conversion of substrates and 99% selectivity of aldehydes were acquired under the optimal conditions.