High temperature–pressure aqueous oxidations. IV. A kinetic study of the oxidation and enolization of cyclohexanone in the presence of catalytic metal ions
The aqueous high pressure–temperature oxidation of cyclohexanone was found to be strongly catalyzed by silver, iron(III), and copper ions but not by aluminum, cobalt, manganese(II), or nickel ions. The reactivities of the catalytic ions were inhibited by the acidic oxidation products. Accordingly, initial reaction velocities were determined and used to correlate the kinetic data. A detailed kinetic study of copper ion catalysis has shown that in the presence of that ion the reaction was first order in cyclohexanone, one-half order in copper ion, and zero order in oxygen. The rate of enolization of cyclohexanone appeared to be unaffected by the presence of copper ion under conditions of constant acidity but was strongly catalyzed by both deuterium ion and acetate ion. Further, the rate of oxidation exceeded the rate of enolization at higher copper ion concentrations. These data contrast with the uncatalyzed oxidation, for which the kinetic reaction was first order in cyclohexanone, one-half order in oxygen, and the rate of oxidation was much less than the rate of enolization. The activation energies for the catalyzed and uncatalyzed oxidations were about the same, but the entropies of activation were quite different. From these data it is concluded that the enol is not a major intermediate for the catalyzed reaction. It is suggested that the copper ion may form an active peroxy complex with the oxygen molecule to serve as the reactive oxidant. Keywords: metal ion catalysis, kinetics, cyclohexanone, high temperature oxidation, high pressure oxidation.