Abstract:

The oxidation of benzyl alcoyhol to benzaldehyde plays an important role in teaching organic chemistry. However, it is often difficult to enter basic university organic chemistry experimental teaching classes because of the unfriendly environment. In this paper, a comprehensive experiment in organic chemistry is introduced. Benzyl alcohol was efficiently oxidized to benzaldehyde in less than 30 min at room temperature using cuprous chloride, 2, 2'-bipyridine (bpy), N-methylimidazole (NMI), and 2, 2, 6, 6-tetramethylpiperidine oxide (TEMPO) as catalysts, air as oxidant, and acetone as solvent. The optimized combined catalytic system can indicate the endpoint of the reaction through color mutation; it can miniaturize the experiment, shorten the reaction time, and reduce experimental cost. Extensive experiments were conducted on benzyl alcohol compounds with different electrical properties, and the reaction exhibited wide adaptability. To some extent, this experiment compensates for the lack of experimental teaching resources for aromatic aldehyde synthesis in college chemistry teaching experiments.

Key words: Comprehensive experiment of organic chemistry, Air oxidation, Aromatic aldehydes, Structural characterization