An Attempt at Enhancing the Regioselective Oxidation of Decane Using Catalysis with Reverse Micelles

Abstract  

The regioselective oxidation of linear alkanes to give terminal oxidation products represents a major challenge for catalysis. A number of previous approaches have shown that confinement and encapsulation can offer an experimentally viable way forward. Against this background we have investigated the use of a system comprising gaseous oxygen, a homogenous catalyst (ammonium metavanadate) confined in an aqueous solution within reverse micelles formed in decane using bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate. At low conversion and at short reaction times we show that the approach does lead to a small enhancement in the selectivity to terminal products, but unsurprisingly the surfactant is more readily oxidised than decane and so the small positive effects of the micellar catalyst system are short-lived.