A sustainable oxidative esterification of thiols with alcohols by a cobalt nanocatalyst supported on doped carbon

Changjian Zhou, Zhenda Tan, Huanfeng Jiang, Min Zhang

Index: 10.1039/C8GC00441B

Full Text: HTML

Abstract

Here, we developed a new cobalt nanocatalyst supported on N-SiO2-doped activated carbon (Co/N–SiO2–AC), which exhibits excellent catalytic performance towards the oxidative esterification of (hetero)aryl and alkyl thiols with alcohols. A wide array of sulfinic esters were efficiently afforded in an exclusive chemoselective manner. The developed synthetic method proceeds with merits of mild reaction conditions, broad substrate scope, operational simplicity, good functional group tolerance, earth-abundant and reusable cobalt catalysts, the utilization of renewable alcohols as the coupling partners and molecular O2 as the sole oxidant, which offers a practical way for sustainable synthesis of sulfinic esters.