We report herein the observation that electronic and steric factors of cobalt dioxygen complexes with systematically derivatized pentadentate Schiff-base ligands affect their ability to catalyze the oxidation of substituted phenols and alter the rate of catalyst decomposition. The electronic and steric factors can be separated sufficiently to indicate that the activity of the cobalt dioxygen catalyst roughly parallels the trends in basicity of the bound 02 suggested by EPR cobalt hyperfine coupling constants of the adducts and predicted from the electronic effects of substituents.
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