The field of organometallic chemistry has emerged over the last twenty-five years or so to become one of the most important areas of chemistry, and there are no signs of abatement in the intense current interest in the subject, particularly in terms of its proven and potential application in catalytic reactions involving hydrocarbons. The development of the organometallic/ catalysis area has resulted in no small way from many contributions from researchers investigating palladium systems. Even to the well-initiated, there seems a bewildering and diverse variety of organic reactions that are promoted by palladium(II) salts and complexes. Such homogeneous reactions include oxidative and nonoxidative coupling of substrates such as olefins, dienes, acetylenes, and aromatics; and various isomerization, disproportionation, hydrogenation, dehydrogenation, car bonylation and decarbonylation reactions, as well as reactions involving formation of bonds between carbon and halogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and silicon. The books by Peter M. Maitlis - The Organic Chemistry of Palladium, Volumes I, II, Academic Press, 1971 - serve to classify and identify the wide variety of reactions, and access to the vast literature is available through these volumes and more recent reviews, including those of J. Tsuji [Accounts Chem. Res. , 6, 8 (1973); Adv. in Organometal. , 17, 141 (1979)], R. F. Heck [Adv. in Catat. , 26, 323 (1977)], and ones by Henry [Accounts Chem. Res. , 6, 16 (1973); Adv. in Organometal. , 13, 363 (1975)]. F. R. Hartley's book - The Chemistry of Platinum and Palladium, App!. Sci. Pub!.

hemistry is the science about breaking and forming of bonds between atoms. One of the most important processes for organic chemistry is breaking bonds C–H, as well as C–C in various compounds, and primarily, in hydrocarbons. Among hydrocarbons, saturated hydrocarbons, alkanes (methane, ethane, propane, hexane etc. ), are especially attractive as substrates for chemical transformations. This is because, on the one hand, alkanes are the main constituents of oil and natural gas, and consequently are the principal feedstocks for chemical industry. On the other hand, these substances are known to be the less reactive organic compounds. Saturated hydrocarbons may be called the “noble gases of organic chemistry” and, if so, the first representative of their family – methane – may be compared with extremely inert helium. As in all comparisons, this parallel between noble gases and alkanes is not fully accurate. Indeed the transformations of alkanes, including methane, have been known for a long time. These reactions involve the interaction with molecular oxygen from air (burning – the main source of energy!), as well as some mutual interconversions of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons. However, all these transformations occur at elevated temperatures (higher than 300–500 °C) and are usually characterized by a lack of selectivity. The conversion of alkanes into carbon dioxide and water during burning is an extremely valuable process – but not from a chemist viewpoint.

Organized to provide maximum utility to the bench synthetic chemist. The editor is well-known for his work in exploring, developing, and applying organopalladium chemistry. Contributors include over 24 world authorities in the field.

Catalyzed oxidation of aromatic hydrocarbons with molecular oxygen has been studied for several decades. For example, toluene can be converted into oxidation products such as benzyl alcohol, benzaldehyde, benzoic acid and benzyl benzoate. At present, the principal industrial production of benzoic acid via the oxidation of toluene involves the use of homogeneous cobalt catalysts in an air pressurized aqueous acetic acid mixture in the presence of Mn ions. However, the use of solvent causes difficulties in the separation of catalysts and products, equipment corrosion, and due to the environmental hazards associated with the use of liquid acids as solvent. Developing solvent free toluene oxidation having great activity has attracted special attention as a promising environmentally friendly reaction. Recently, gold based supported catalyst have been found to be highly effective oxidation catalyst where a number of important discoveries have been made such as in hydrogen peroxide synthesis and selective oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes. As a proof of concept for the following studies, oxidation of toluene and other aromatic hydrocarbons were carried out in round bottom flask with TBHP as oxidant. At mild condition (80 oC), it was evident that Au-Pd supported catalyst is capable of oxidising aromatics C-H bonds on toluene and derivatives and TBHP as oxidant also have been discovered well in this thesis. The catalyst preparation method was shown to be very important in the formation of active site catalysts. The sol-immobilisation catalyst with a narrow distribution of small particles, was more active than Au-Pd alloy having Au-core palladium shell with PdO dominance on the surface via impregnation catalyst. In addition to that, the choice of support is crucial and this study discovered carbon as a preferred support give enhance on performance activity of toluene. At the same time, the distribution of products can be altered with the choice of preparation methods and support. The synergistic effect of Au and Pd was confirmed by superior catalytic activity compared to monometallic catalyst. Investigations of reaction conditions such as reaction time, reusability, pre-treatment conditions, metal ratio, and mass of catalyst were fully investigated. It was found that the activity and selectivity of the catalyst was highly dependent on these variables. Reaction mechanism was proposed and it was based on catalytic evaluation data. Even though, the proposed mechanism was contradicted by the EPR data study, it was believed that the reactive oxygen species (ROS) was involved in the surface of catalyst and give effect of the catalytic activity. Overall, the oxidation of toluene was successfully studied by using Au-Pd supported catalyst and can not be denied that the importance of TBHP as oxidant involve in this process has been proven.