Aryloxysulphoxonium salts

Aryl-3-oxo-1 -alkenyl sulphoxides, synthesis of 282, 283 Aryloxysulphoxonium salts 941-943 synthesis of 280 Aryl radicals 879... 

Since sulphones 204 are easily available compounds one would expect that they could be used as starting materials for the preparation of sulphoxides via the selective removal of one oxygen atom from the sulphonyl group (equation 112). Up to now, there is only one example reported of a direct reduction of a sulphone to a sulphoxide. The bicyclic dideuterio sulphone 205 after 24 h treatment with three-fold excess of diisobutyl aluminium hydride in boiling dichloromethane gave the corresponding sulphoxide 206 in 36% yield (equation 113). A two-step procedure for the selective reduction of sulphones to sulphoxides, which involves an initial reaction of sulphone 204 with aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborate 207 to form aryloxysulphoxonium salt 208 and its subsequent reduction (equation 114), was alluded to by Shimagaki and coworkers and... 

The reactions that have been described above have indicated that sulphones interact poorly with electrophiles. However, in 1970, Whiting and coworkers announced the synthesis of aryloxysulphoxonium salts , by the reaction of sulphones with the potent electrophile produced in the thermolysis of aryldiazonium tetrafluoroborates or hexaflu-orophosphates. Fluorobenzenes are by-products of the reaction. In a subsequent paper , Whiting described the reactions of the aryloxysulphoxonium salts, 5, with oxygen and nitrogen nucleophiles. The fundamentals of these are outlined in equations (34) (oxygen nucleophile) and (35) (nitrogen nucleophile). 

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