[Nemesisof99]

When vapours of primary or secondary alcohols are passed through red hot copper tube, they get oxidised to aldehydes or ketones resp.

What role does the catalyst copper play in this reaction? Can we use some other metal surface for the same purpose? What happens if a tert. alcohol is used..does it get converted to an alkene?

[KritikalMass]

Just to keep the ball rolling.... if the alcohol is oxidized the copper must be reduced right. I don't think the copper acts as a catalyst, think it gets reduced. Therefore the copper acts as an oxidizing agent.

You could probably google oxidizing agents and find out if there are any similar metals that have this function.

Let me know what you think.