Natural citral is one of the major exports of natural single-isolated spice in china, mainly extracted from litsea cubeba oil by distillation purification. In view of the problems of limited raw materials, complex process operation and low output, a method for the synthesis of natural citral was designed. The natural linalool was oxidized with PCC reagent (pyridine chlorochromate) as oxidant. The effect of Corey oxidation mechanism on the synthesis of citral was deeply explored through various process parameters. The influence of reaction time, solvents, additives and material ratios on the oxidation reaction were studied. Natural citral was prepared with a higher yield. The optimum process parameters were as follows: ethyl acetate as solvent, n(PCC): n(hydrochloric acid): n(linalool) = 2:3:1, the reaction temperature was 40 ℃ and the reaction time was 4 h. Citral was prepared with high yield in order to provide theoretical reference for the preparation of natural citral.