Selective oxidation of C-H bond was regarded as the Holy Grail of chemistry. As one of the primary oxygenated products of selective oxidation of hydrocarbon, alkyl hydroperoxides (ROOHs) is necessary to be efficiently decomposed to the higher value-added oxygen-containing compounds such as alcohol and ketone. Usually, strong alkali of NaOH is used to decompose ROOHs to realize a higher selectivity to alcohol and ketone, which inevitably produces a large amount of alkali-containing waste potential destroying the environment. It is challenge to develop a green method to catalytically decompose ROOHs especially under the mild conditions. In the present work, at the absence of any alkali and under the irradiation of blue light, specific ferrous salt of FeCl₂·4H₂O was found to be able to act as an efficient catalyst to decompose various ROOHs in ethanol. Decomposition of ROOHs were all conducted in a quartz tubes (10 mL) under the photo irradiation of the LED lamp. Typically, TBHP aqueous solution (70 wt%, 0.8 mmol), metal salt (0.08 mmol), and solvent (1 mL) was added to the quartz tube. Then, the quartz tube was sealed with a sealing film and exposed to the LED lamp for 5 h under stirring. Modulating anionic and cationic species, wavelength of the light, and species of solvent showed obvious effect on the catalytic efficiency. At the ambient temperature under the photoirradiation with the blue light of 400 nm and 3 W, high conversion of 82.3%~96.8% could be obtained with the selectivity of 85.2%~97.1% to the oxygenated product of high value-added alcohol or ketone for a series of ROOHs. Characterization results of FT-IR and UV-Vis spectra indicated that the interaction happening between the ferrous ions, chloride ion, and the solvent molecules improved the visible light absorption ability and then played an important role to improve the catalytic activity under the blue light irradiation.

Key words: Alkyl hydroperoxides, Ferrous salt, Catalytic decomposition, Ambient temperature, Photo irradiation