Selective Oxidation of Biomass-Derived Secondary Alcohols

Although various gold-catalysed oxidation reactions have been extensively studied and reported in the literature, transformations of biomass-derived compounds have been investigated to a lesser extent. This chapter describes the selective oxidation of the naturally occurring lignin, hydroxymatairesinol (HMR), to form another lignan oxomatairesinol (oxoMAT), which represents an example of the selective oxidation of biomass-derived secondary alcohols. The lignan oxoMAT has been shown to be beneficial for human health. But because it cannot be extracted directly from biomass in sufficient amounts, there is a need to synthesize it from the more abundant HMR. Gold catalysts demonstrate a complete selectivity in HMR oxidation to oxoMAT. The chapter describes the influence of the reaction conditions on product yield, catalyst deactivation, reaction structure sensitivity, reaction mechanism and reactions kinetics.