Ferric nitrate nonahydrate, an abundant, cheap, non-toxic and commercially available can be used as an oxidant in the presence of catalytic amounts of heteropoly acids or polyoxometalates. Primarily, oxidation of benzyl alcohol, as a model compound, was performed in the presence of several heteropoly acids or their salts, and some other common or solid acids, with this oxidant under solventfree conditions. The results show that in the absence of the catalysts, the oxidation reaction did not proceed after 30 minutes at room temperature, but in the presence of heteropoly acids this conversion proceeded efficiently in a few minutes under similar reaction conditions.
