Pinacol is described as a new chemoselective and environmentally benign reducing agent for sulfoxides and nitroaromatics assisted by readily available dichlorodioxomolybdenum(VI) complexes as catalysts. A wide range of substrates including those bearing challenging functional groups have been efficiently and selectively reduced being acetone and water the only byproducts of these reactions.

The mechanism of the dehydrosulfenylation of 2-arylsulfinyl esters was investigated. The reaction was found to follow a homolytic cleavage mechanism as verified by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry and experimental work. Rearranged sulfoxides are obtained as byproduct during the elimination reaction.

A series of enantiomerically pure mono- and bis-aryl tert-butyl sulfoxides were synthesised to promote the enantioselective allylation of aldehydes with allyltrichlorosilane. Moderate to good yields and modest to high enantioselectivities were achieved. The absence of nonlinear effect, spacer effect, promoter loading and concentration effect indicate that only one molecule of aryl tert-butyl su...

Rearrangements of 1,3-oxathiolane sulfoxides 8 and 9 in the presence of base are described from a mechanistic viewpoint of sigmatropic and elimination reactions. In the presence of triethylamine the (Z)sulfoxide 8 gave the corresponding thiolsulfinate 10 by way of dimerization of the sulfenic acid intermediate 2 at room temperature while the (E)-sulfoxide 9 was recovered even after refluxing in...

A series of sulfoxides were sulfoximinated using oxidative addition of 3-aminoquinazolinones by lead tetraacetate in the presence of hexamethyldisilazane. They were applied for the first time in catalytic enantioselective addition to aromatic aldehydes with a product enantiopurity (ee) of 92% in the case of 2-methoxybenzaldehyde.

A new catalytic asymmetric oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides in water using the hypervalent iodine(V) reagent iodoxybenzene (PhIO2) has been developed. This methodology is distinctly different from the previously reported use of cyclodextrins or biological catalysts and provides a new route to asymmetric sulfoxidation in water.

A novel rhodium-catalyzed imination of sulfoxides using O-(2,4-dinitrophenyl)hydroxylamine is developed under mild conditions with good functional group tolerance. This method provides an efficient access to free NH-sulfoximines, an important structural unit in a variety of biologically active compounds.

A highly regio- and stereoselective hydration of 1,2-allenylic sulfoxides in which proton served as the electrophile was reported. Through the X-ray diffraction study, it was concluded that the reaction may proceed via a 5-membered cyclic intermediate following by attack of the (-)OH at the sulfur atom.

An environmentally benign method for C-H/O-H difunctionalization of phenols with sulfoxides under mild conditions has been developed. The reaction process is mediated by an electrophilic aromatic substitution and subsequent selective aryl or alkyl migration, involving C-S and C-O bond formations with broad substrate scope.