Aerobic oxidation of secondary benzylic alcohols and direct oxidative amidation of aryl aldehydes promoted by sodium hydride

We reported herein new reactivities and possible mechanistic implications of a simplest oxidant (NaH/air) uncovered on a broad range of useful transformations, including aerobic alcohol oxidations, allylic alcohol isomerizations and oxidations, cyclopropyl alcohol fragmentations, and direct aryl aldehyde oxidative amidations. These readily implementable transition-metal-free processes feature exceptional material accessibility, operational simplicity, and environmental compatibility, and add new dimensions to its synthetic utilities that are fairly robust yet had not previously been fully realized and systematically explored.