Oxiranes from sulfonium ylides

Interestingly, sulfonium ylides generated from electrophilic carbene complexes and sulfides can react with carbonyl compounds, imines, or acceptor-substituted alkenes to yield oxiranes [1320-1325], aziridines [1321,1326,1327] or cyclopropanes [1328,1329], respectively. In all these transformations the thioether used to form the sulfonium ylide is regenerated and so, catalytic amounts of thioether can be sufficient for complete conversion of a given carbene precursor into the... 

Oxiranes can be prepared in excellent yield from carbonyl compounds by alkylidene transfer with sulfonium ylides. The reaction is generally carried out with dimethylsulfonium methylide 77, dimethylsulfoxonium methylide 78, or related compounds such as anionoid species originating from sulfylimines 79 and sulfox-imines 80 that can undergo addition to the electrophilic carbonyl carbon. 

Reactions with sulfur ylides proceed differently. The products are oxacyclo-propanes (oxiranes) —not alkenes. The addition step proceeds as with the phosphorus ylides, but the negatively charged oxygen of the dipolar adduct then displaces the sulfonium group as a neutral sulfide. This is an intramolecular Sn2 reaction similar to the formation of oxacyclopropanes from vicinal chloroalcohols (Section 15-11C) ... 

Thiophene sulfonium salts have also been used for alkylation of phenols, thiophenols, and other nucleophiles (Equation 70) <2001T2871>. Ylides generated from THT and alkyl or allyl halides are known to react with aldehydes to form oxiranes. However, a modified procedure has been developed in which only a catalytic amount of THT is used for the preparation of vinyloxiranes from allyl bromides and aldehydes. In most of the cases, a m-/ra r-mixture of vinyloxiranes was obtained. Optically pure C2-symmetric /ra r-2,5-dimethyltetrahydrothiophene has also been used for the asymmetric version of this reaction, but the enantioselectivity was poor (25% ee) (Equation 71) <2003CC2074>. 

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