Considering the importance of allylic C-H bond oxidation of olefins and the un-solved challenging issues such as long reaction time and a large quantity of the required catalyst and encourage by excellent performance of halloysite as a catalyst support, a novel catalytic system was developed that could promote this reaction efficiently. To prepare the catalyst, halloysite was first functionalized with ionic liquid and then reacted with 2-aminopyrimidine to afford a potential support, Hal-P. The latter was then used for in-situ immobilization of Cu(CH3CN)4PF6 and promoting reaction of cycloolefin and tert-butyl p-nitrobenzoperoxoate under mild reaction condition. The results showed that the nature of copper could play an important role in the catalytic activity. Moreover, the presence of ionic liquid and 2-aminopyrimidine in the structure of the catalyst could improve the catalytic activity of the final catalyst. Notably, low amount of the catalyst could catalyze the reaction to afford the corresponding allylic esters in good yield. It was also found that the reaction was size selective and cyclic olefins with lower strain could undergo this reaction more effectively. The study of the recyclability of the catalyst confirmed that the catalyst was recyclable and could be recovered and recycled for five consecutive reaction runs.
