“…[1][2][3][4] Despite several industrial applications such as the oxidation of cyclohexane and p-xylene, which use O 2 as the oxidant and manganese or cobalt based catalysts, the development of practical oxidation catalysts and a thorough mechanistic understanding of alkane oxidation processes continue to provide great challenges in catalysis research. A number of different classes of alkane oxidation catalysts have been developed during the last 50 years, including the cobalt and manganese acetate catalyst systems used industrially, 5 the heme-based iron complexes containing porphyrin-type ligands used in nature, 6,7 polyoxometalates [8][9][10] and more recently, non-heme iron based catalyst systems. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] The metal catalysts are typically combined with oxidants, which can have different oxo transfer abilities 18 , for example H 2 O 2 , O 2 , ClO -, PhIO, O 3 or N 2 O, whereby the first two oxidants are economically and environmentally the most attractive oxidants.…”