A New Route to Triarylsulfonium Salts via the Double Arylation of Thiophenols

Abstract

Although the literature contains a number of synthetic procedures for the preparation of triarylsulfonium salts, ¹⁻¹⁰ there existed no single general method capable of giving a wide variety of substituted symmetrical and unsymmetrical triarylsulfonium salts in high yields. Recently, we reported that the copper catalyzed diaryliodonium salt arylation of diarylsulfides (equation 1)

proceeds smoothly at moderate temperatures to give good to excellent yields of triarylsulfonium salts.¹¹