Three Reagents in One: Ammonium Permanganate in the Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol László Kotai3, B éla Kazinczy3, Á gnes Keszler3, Sándor Holly3, István Gács3, and Kalyan K. Banerjib a Institute of Chemistry, Chemical Research Center, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1525 Budapest, P. O. Box 17, Hungary b Department of Chemistry, J. N. V. University, Jodhpur-342005, India Reprint requests to L. Kötai. Fax: 36-1-3257554. E-mail:
[email protected] Z. Naturforsch. 56b,823-825 (2001); received December 20, 2000 Ammonium Permanganate, Oxidation The oxidation or consecutive ammoxidation reaction of benzyl alcohol with solid ammo nium permanganate was studied. The first oxidation step leads to the formation of benzalde- hyde, ammonia, and M n02. The M n02 is present in the system in a colloidal form which facilitates the reaction between aldehyde and ammonia, and this latter reactionthen yields benzonitrile. All these products are formed in a heterogeneous system under relatively mild conditions. The yield of benzaldehyde has an optimum at room temperature and increases with increasing reaction time. At higher temperature(e.g. 80 °C) benzonitrile is formed to gether with minor amounts of benzyl benzoate. Introduction the reaction of 1 and solid NH4M n04 beside the Benzyl alcohol and its ring-substituted deriva- inorganic residue. After one hour at 22 °C, only ives can be easily oxidized by various permanga the formation of benzaldehyde (2) could be ob nates [1-14]. Reaction conditions, such as the na- served, and its yield increased with increasing tem jure of the oxidant and the medium, temperature, perature. Benzonitrile (3), however, appeared only lie.