Although the α-oxygenation of amines is a highly attractive method for the synthesis of amides, efficient catalysts suited to a wide range of secondary and tertiary alkyl amines using O2 as the terminal oxidant have no precedent. This report describes a novel, green α-oxygenation of a wide range of linear and cyclic secondary and tertiary amines mediated by gold nanoparticles supported on alumina (Au/Al2 O3 ). The observed catalysis was truly heterogeneous, and the catalyst could be reused. The present α-oxygenation utilizes O2 as the terminal oxidant and water as the oxygen atom source of amides. The method generates water as the only theoretical by-product, which highlights the environmentally benign nature of the present reaction. Additionally, the present α-oxygenation provides a convenient method for the synthesis of (18) O-labeled amides using H2 (18) O as the oxygen source.

Although supported anionic gold nanoparticle catalysts have been theoretically investigated for their efficacy in activating O 2 in aerobic oxidation reactions, limited studies have been reported due to the difficulty of designing these catalysts. Herein, we developed a feasible method for preparing supported anionic gold nanoparticle catalysts using multivacant lacunary polyoxometalates with high negative charges. We confirmed the strong and robust electronic interaction between gold nanoparticles and multivacant lacunary polyoxometalates, and the electronic states of the supported gold nanoparticle catalysts can be sequentially modulated. Particularly, the catalyst prepared using [SiW 9 O 34 ] 10À acted as an efficient reusable heterogeneous catalyst, showing superior catalytic performance for the oxidative dehydrogenation of piperidone derivatives to the corresponding enaminones and remarkably higher stability than supported gold nanoparticle catalysts without this modification.

Flavones are a class of natural products with diverse biological activities and have frequently been synthesized by step-by-step procedures using stoichiometric amounts of reagents. Herein, a catalytic one-pot procedure for the synthesis of flavone and its derivatives is developed. In the presence of gold nanoparticles supported on a Mg-Al layered double hydroxide (Au/LDH), various kinds of flavones can be synthesized starting from 2'-hydroxyacetophenones and benzaldehydes (or benzyl alcohols). The present one-pot procedure consists of a sequence of several reactions, and Au/LDH can catalyze all these different types of reactions. The catalysis is shown to be truly heterogeneous, and Au/LDH can be readily recovered and reused.

Dehydrogenative aromatization is one of the attractive alternative methods for directly synthesizing primary anilines from NH3 and cyclohexanones. However, the selective synthesis of primary anilines is quite difficult because the desired primary aniline products and the cyclohexanone substrates readily undergo condensation affording the corresponding imines (i.e., N‐cyclohexylidene‐anilines), followed by hydrogenation to produce N‐cyclohexylanilines as the major products. In this study, primary anilines were selectively synthesized in the presence of supported Pd nanoparticle catalysts (e.g., Pd/HAP, HAP=hydroxyapatite, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) by utilizing competitive adsorption unique to heterogeneous catalysis; in other words, when styrene was used as a hydrogen acceptor, which preferentially adsorbs on the Pd nanoparticle surface in the presence of N‐cyclohexylidene‐anilines, various structurally diverse primary anilines were selectively synthesized from readily accessible NH3 and cyclohexanones. The Pd/HAP catalyst was reused several times though its catalytic performance gradually declined.

Direct selective desaturation of carbonyl compounds to synthesize α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compounds represents an environmentally benign alternative to classical stepwise procedures. In this study, we designed an ideal CeO2-supported Pd­(II)-on-Au nanoparticle catalyst (Pd/Au/CeO2) and successfully achieved heterogeneously catalyzed selective desaturation of cyclohexanones to cyclohexenones using O2 in air as the oxidant. Besides cyclohexenones, various bioactive enones can also be synthesized from the corresponding saturated ketones under open air conditions in the presence of Pd/Au/CeO2. Preliminary mechanistic studies revealed that α-C–H bond cleavage in the substrates is the turnover-limiting step of this desaturation reaction.

In the presence of Au nanoparticles supported on manganese oxide OMS-2 (Au/OMS-2), various kinds of β-heteroatom-substituted α,β-unsaturated ketones (heteroatom = N, O, S) can be synthesized through α,β-dehydrogenation of the corresponding saturated ketones using O (in air) as the oxidant. The catalysis of Au/OMS-2 is truly heterogeneous, and the catalyst can be reused.

Flavonoids, which are ubiquitous plant secondary metabolites obtained from chalcones, mostly possess 6membered C-rings derived from 6-endo-trig cyclization of chalcones. However, aurones, which are a class of flavonoids that rarely occur naturally, possess unusual 5-membered Crings biosynthesized from chalcones by mainly performing Bring oxidation. Therefore, the chemical catalytic transformation from simple chalcones into aurones is attractive, because it overcomes the drawback of known limited enzyme catalysis. The catalytic transformation, however, has not yet been reported because of the preferential 6-membered ring formation as with the biosynthesis and the need for rare intramolecular olefinic C−H functionalization. Here, we developed the catalytic olefinic C−H functionalization of simple chalcones toward various aurones enabled by the rational design of a function-integrated heterogeneous catalysta Pd-on-Au bimetallic nanoparticle catalyst supported on CeO 2 using O 2 in air as the sole oxidant without any additives. In this system, the four conditions that were required for the challenging transformation toward aurones were achieved by the respective components of the catalyst: (a) a supported Pd catalyst: a catalyst for the olefinic C−H functionalization of chalcones toward aurones, (b) an Au promoter: an improvement in the catalytic activity by stabilizing Pd(0), (c) a CeO 2 support: the inhibition of the 6-endo-trig cyclization utilizing the adsorption of chalcones, and (d) a Pd-on-Au structure: the inhibition of Au-catalyzed flavone synthesis. This catalytic transformation will promote not only the pharmaceutical study of aurones but also the rational design of a heterogeneous catalyst for the development of organic reactions that are not yet realized by homogeneous catalysts or biocatalyst.

Methyl-selective a-oxygenation of tertiary amines is ahighly attractive approach for synthesizing formamides while preserving the amine substrate skeletons.Therefore,the development of efficient catalysts that can advance regioselective aoxygenation at the N-methyl positions using molecular oxygen (O 2 )a st he terminal oxidant is an important subject. In this study,w es uccessfully developed ah ighly regioselective and efficient aerobic methyl-selective a-oxygenation of tertiary amines by employingaCu/nitroxyl radical catalyst system. The use of moderately hindered nitroxyl radicals,s uch as 1,5dimethyl-9-azanoradamantaneN -oxyl( DMN-AZADO) and 1-methyl-2-azaadamanane N-oxyl (1-Me-AZADO), was very important to promote the oxygenation effectively mainly because these N-oxyls have longer life-times than less hindered N-oxyls.V arious types of tertiary N-methylamines were selectively converted to the corresponding formamides.A plausible reaction mechanism is also discussed on the basis of experimental evidence,t ogether with DFT calculations.T he high regioselectivity of this catalyst system stems from steric restriction of the amine-N-oxyl interactions.