Development of Catalytic Oxygenative Difunctionalization Reactions of Carbon-Carbon Double Bond Using Molecular Oxygen in Air

Molecular oxygen is recognized as an ideal oxidant, because it is abundantly available, inexpensive, and environmentally benign. Despite the recent remarkable progress of catalytic oxidative dehydrogen reactions such as a transformation of hydroxy group into the corresponding carbonyl group using molecular oxygen as a terminal oxidant, catalytic methodologies for directly incorporating molecular oxygen into organic substrate remain a significant challenge in synthetic chemistry. In this article, we have summarized our recent efforts to use manganese complex as a catalyst for directly incorporating molecular oxygen in air (pure oxygen is not required) under ambient conditions into unactivated carbon-carbon double bond.