The present invention is intended to provide a method that can produce an oxidation reaction product of a hydrocarbon or a derivative thereof in an aqueous phase using a hydrocarbon or a derivative thereof as a raw material. In order to achieve the above object, the method for producing an oxidation reaction product of a hydrocarbon or a derivative thereof of the present invention includes the step of: irradiating a reaction system with light in a presence of a raw material and a halogen oxide radical to react, wherein the raw material is a hydrocarbon or a derivative thereof, the reaction system is a reaction system containing an aqueous phase, the aqueous phase contains the raw material and the halogen oxide radical, and in the reaction step, the raw material is oxidized to produce an oxidation reaction product of the raw material.

Compounds of formula I ##STR00001##
a process for preparation of compounds of formula I; precursor compounds of formula II ##STR00002##
a process for preparation of precursor compounds of formula II; compounds of formula III ##STR00003##
a process for the preparation of compounds of formula IV from compounds of formula III ##STR00004##
and the use of compounds of formula I for the preparation of compounds of formula IV.

Provided is a continuous process for the oxidative cleavage of derivatives of unsaturated carboxylic acids for the production of saturated carboxylic acids and their derivatives which comprises the steps of: a) feeding to a first reactor at least a derivative of an unsaturated carboxylic acid, an oxidizing compound and a catalyst capable of catalyzing the oxidation reaction of the olefinic double bond to obtain an intermediate compound containing vicinal diols, and of b) feeding to a second reactor said intermediate compound, a compound containing oxygen and a catalyst capable of catalyzing the oxidation reaction of the vicinal diols to carboxylic groups, to obtain saturated monocarboxylic acids (i) and derivatives of saturated carboxylic acids with more than one acid function (ii); c) separating the saturated monocarboxylic acids (i) from the derivatives of carboxylic acids having more than one acid function (ii).