Deyin Chen

1 Introduction Traditional redox reactions are extensively employed in the industrial synthesis of both bulk and fine organic chemicals, such as the selective hydrogenation of phenylacetylene to styrene, the hydrogenation of nitrobenzene to p-aminophenol, the reductive dechlorination of pentachloropyridine to tetrachloropyridine, the oxidation of p-methoxytoluene to p-methoxybenzaldehyde, and the selective oxidation of cholesterol acetate to 7-ketocholesterol acetate [1-5].