Selective cyclohexane oxidation catalyzed by manganese porphyrins and co-catalysts

•Catalytic activity of co-catalysts is found to be closely related to the polarity.•High selectivity of products in the cyclohexane oxidation is achieved.•We report a new approach for preparing glutaric acid.

Several polar molecules, such as alcohols, ketones, esters and acids, were used as co-catalysts for the cyclohexane oxidation catalyzed by manganese porphyrins, and the catalytic activity was found to be closely related to polarity of co-catalysts. The results indicated that the total selectivity of products was as high as 96.3% and glutaric acid selectivity was up to 50.9%. Thus, the proposed method provides a new approach for preparing glutaric acid.

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