Alkene Selective Oxidation on Cu/Au Surfaces

Alkene selective oxidation is of major technological importance since alkene epoxides are versatile chemical intermediates used in the manufacture of a wide range of commodity and fine chemicals. The reaction itself is mechanistically very interesting and it has attracted a lot of the academic interest over many years. Various models have been proposed in order to explain why the reaction is apparently unique to silver surfaces. It was originally thought that adsorbed dioxygen, unique to silver, was the epoxidizing species. Recent UHV and reactor studies have proved that this hypothesis is wrong: in fact, atomically adsorbed oxygen is responsible for both epoxidation and combustion products.