The chemistry of Schiff base has received remarkable attention in different applications, both organic synthesis and industries. Over the past few years many reports have been on the synthesis, characterization and application of vanadium Schiff base complexes. However, heterogeneous vanadium Schiff base catalysts are active for various oxidation reactions, making catalytic oxidation of hydrocarbons a great interest. This review summarizes the recent development of organic substrate oxidation with heterogeneous vanadium Schiff base catalysts.

Proficient routes were devised for coupling different aromatic/aliphatic acids with amines to form amide linkage using various catalysts. Under the optimized reaction conditions, highest conversion was possible without formation of any by-products. All synthesized compounds were purified using column chromatography and characterized by mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric analysis.

Different metal catalysts have been tested for the one-pot transformation of carbonyl compounds, amines and phosphites to α-aminophosphonates. The influence of catalyst type, amount, solvent and the substrate electronic factor have been investigated. The results revealed that the carbonyl compounds could be smoothly converted into α-aminophosphonates at room temperature in good to excellent yields, with or without solvent in a reasonable reaction time. These results suggested that among others, lithium perchlorate and metal triflates were proven to be effective catalysts in 10 moles % catalysts. Polar aprotic solvents proved to be the best for the synthesis of α-aminophosphonates. The synthesized compounds' structure characterizations were elucidated by different spectroscopic tools and showed results consistent with the expected structures.

A microwave-assisted method was developed for the synthesis of aldol adducts using RuCl3.nH2O-BINAP as an efficient catalyst. Important advantages of this technology include environmentally benign condition, highly accelerated rate of the reaction with an improvement in the chemoselectivity and quality of the products.