Catalytic oxidation of styrene was investigated over polymer- and nonpolymer-anchored Cu(II) and Mn(II) complex catalysts prepared by schiff base tridentate ligands. The effect of temperature, styrene to H2O2 mole ratio and catalyst amount on the catalytic activity and product selectivity was investigated. Further, the catalysts were characterized by various techniques, such as elemental analysis, atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), FTIR, FE-SEM, EDAX, TGA, and UVvis spectrophotometer. The elemental analysis, EDAX and AAS results confirmed the formation of Cu(II) and Mn(II) complexes, and it was found that the metal loading in the polymer-anchored complex catalysts were in the range of 0.533.74 %. FTIR results showed the co-ordination bond formation between the polymer ligands and metal ion. The catalytic data showed that, over all the catalysts, the main reaction products were benzaldehyde, styrene oxide, and benzoic acid. The polymer-anchored complex catalysts were found to be much more active when compared with nonpolymer-anchored catalysts. The maximum conversion of styrene (92.3%) was obtained over PS-[Cu(Hfsal-aepy)Cl] catalyst with benzaldehyde selectivity to 69% at the styrene to H2O2 mole ratio of 1 : 4 at 75 degrees C. Although the PS-[Mn(Hfsal-aepy)Cl] catalyst was less active, it was highly selective to benzaldehyde. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013