Keggin-Type Heteropoly Salts as Bifunctional Catalysts in Aerobic Baeyer-Villiger Oxidation.

The cobalt, manganese, and iron salts of tungstophosphoric or molybdophosphoric acid with growing content of metals were applied for the first time as catalysts in the Baeyer-Villiger (BV) oxidation of cyclohexanone to ε-caprolactone with molecular oxygen. The catalysts were characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and ethanol decomposition reaction. Introduction of transition metals into the heteropoly structure increases the activity of resulting heteropoly salts in comparison with parent heteropolyacids.