 Stronger, more electron-rich bonds are activated preferentially over weaker, more electron-poor bonds of species that have already been partially oxidized.This avoids a problem that plagues many partial oxidation processes, namely, the over-oxidation of substrate to thermodynamic sinks such as H2O and CO2.In the next step the PtII-CH2R complex is oxidized by [PtIVCl6]2− to a PtIV-CH2R complex.