Even though the chemistry of cyanohydrins has been extensively studied, the a-cyanoalkyl sulfonates have been neglected. Because of the similarity of alkyl sulfonates and alkyl halides in chemical reactions, one would expect the a-cyanoalkyl sulfonates to be similar to the a-halonitriles in their reactions. In the work reported in this paper, this has been found to be true. a-Cyanobenzyl benzenesulfonate (I) was prepared in 84y0 yield by the reaction of ...