Affiliation:
1. Laboratory of Organic Chemistry Department of Chemistry National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Panepistimiopolis 15771 Athens Greece
2. CNRS MOLTECH-ANJOU SFR-MATRIX F-49000 Angers France
3. Department of Physics University of Seoul 02504 Seoul Republic of Korea
Abstract
AbstractThe sulfoxide moiety is one of the most commonly utilized groups in pharmaceutical and industrial chemistry. The need for sustainability and easy accessibility to sulfoxide moieties is deemed necessary, due to its ubiquity in natural products and potentially pharmaceutically active compounds. In this context, we report herein a sustainable, aerobic and environmentally friendly photochemical protocol based on the use of a benzothioxathene imide as the photocatalyst to selectively oxidize sulfides under mild irradiation (456 nm), in very low catalyst loading (0.01 mol %) and on water. In addition, to demonstrate the compatibility of our protocol with wide scope of substrates, the latter was successfully applied to the synthesis of the biologically‐active Sulforaphane and Modafinil.