Oxidation of p/o-Cresols to p/o-Hydroxybenzaldehydes Catalyzed by Metalloporphyrins with Molecular Oxygen

The two novel green oxidation processes of p/o-cresols to p/o-hydroxybenzaldehydes catalyzed by metalloporphyrins in the presence of molecular oxygen were developed in this work.Among the metalloporphyrins with different central ions and substituents studied,T（p-NO 2）PPCoCl and T（p-OCH 3）PPFeCl presented the highest activities for p-cresol and o-cresol oxidation reactions respectively.The molar ratio of sodium hydroxide to cresols and different reaction parameters including reaction temperature,reaction time and reaction pressure have been investigated,and 69.8%/50.4% conversions of p/o-cresol and 86.6%/26.6% selectivities for p/o-hydroxybenzaldehydes were reached under optimized conditions.