Ruthenium(III) Chloride as an Efficient Catalyst for the Selective Oxidation of Fatty Alcohols to Aldehydes

The oxidation of a series of fatty alcohols to yield the corresponding aldehydes is performed using RuCl3 center dot(H2O)(x) as a homogeneous catalyst and inexpensive trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) as the oxygen source. The reaction conditions were optimized for both high conversion and high selectivity.