The liquid-phase oxidation of cyclohexene (CH) by atmospheric oxygen is of considerable practical interest in connection with the broad synthetic possibilities of its oxidation products -the epoxide (OCH), 3-hydroperoxide (HP), cyclohexen-3-ol (CHol), cyclohexen-3-one (CHone), etc. [1,2]. At the same time CH is a convenient (model) compound for investigation of the main pathways and the selectivity in both direct and conjugate oxidation of compounds with an activated CH bond in relation to composition of the catalytic system and the structure of the metal-complex catalyst.In a continuation of our researches on the catalytic characteristics of the polynuclear pivalates of 3d metals [3, 4] we examined the oxidation of CH in the presence of a series of homo-and heteronuclear complexes with the CoM 2 O core (M = Co, Cr, Fe), viz.: [Co 3 OPiv 6 (g-Pic) 3 ]Piv (I), CoCr 2 OPiv 6 ·3Ppy (II), and CoFe 2 OPiv 6 ·3Ppy (III). For comparison the pivalate NiCr 2 OPiv 6 ·3Ppy (IV), which exhibited catalytic characteristics close to its cobalt analog in the decomposition of the hydroperoxide of dibenzyl ether [5] (II), was included in this series. The synthesis and structure of the investigated pivalates were described in [6,7].
900040-5760/07/4302-0090