Selective oxidation of alkanes: Implications of radically different mechanisms

INOR 368

Jay A. Labinger, Beckman Institute, Beckman Institute, California Institute of Technology, 139-74, Pasadena, CA 91125
Many varied approaches to the fundamentally as well as practically important problem of selective alkane oxidation are being energetically pursued. In the realms of both heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysis, constraints on the nature of possible selective oxidation products and the extent to which selectivity may be achieved depend critically on a mechanistic issue: whether or not the initial C-H bond-breaking event is homolytic in character. I will support this argument with examples from our work on heterogeneous, biomimetic and organometallic oxidation catalysts.