Autoxidation is the direct reaction of molecular oxygen with organic compounds
under relatively mild conditions.[7] More specifically, autoxidation is described as the
insertion of a molecule of oxygen into a C-H bond of a hydrocarbon chain to give an alkyl
hydroperoxide.[8] Autoxidation and metal-catalysed autoxidation has been extensively
studied for numerous substrates under various reaction conditions.[8-15] Generally, an
induction time is observed after which the autoxidation reaction abruptly starts and
rapidly attains a limiting, maximum oxidation rate.[12, 13, 16, 17] The reaction proceeds by a
free-radical chain mechanism and can be described in terms of initiation, propagation and
termination. Scheme 1.1 shows the generally accepted reaction steps.