The investigation of diverse carbon-sulfur (C-S) bond activation by transition-metal catalysts can provide fundamental understanding of the C-S bond cleavage in organosulfur compound-involved cross-couplings. C-S bond cross-coupling has become more and more attractive as an alternative protocol to establish carboncarbon and carbonheteroatom bonds.
By designing suitable catalyst systems, desulfitative cross-coupling of organosulfur compounds can be rendered catalytic. As more and more efforts are devoted to CS transformations, organosulfur compounds are becoming a class of versatile coupling partners. Diverse transformations through transition-metal-catalyzed CS bond activation and cleavage have recently been developed.
Recently, a research group led by Prof. YU Zhengkun and Prof. ZHOU Yonggui from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reviewed transition-metal mediated carbon-sulfur bond activation and transformations. This study was published in Chem. Soc. Rev. on May 27.
This review summarized the advances in transition-metal-catalyzed cross-coupling via carbonsulfur bond activation and cleavage since late 2012. It was presented by the categories of organosulfur compounds as well as the mechanistic insights.
The scientists briefly introduced the overview of CS bond cleavage reactions with stoichiometric transition-metal reagents. And discussed theoretical studies on the reactivity of carbonsulfur bonds by DFT calculations.
Transition-metal mediated carbon–sulfur bond activation and transformations: an update (Image by WU Kaikai)
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. (Text by WU Kaikai)