β-Thioamide Sulfone Enabled Copper-Catalyzed Ring-Opening/Sulfonylation of Cyclopropenes: Access to Alkyl Aryl Sulfones.

Sulfone motifs play important roles in bioactive compounds and functional materials. The development of efficient methodologies for constructing sulfonyl-containing compounds has thus attracted considerable attention. Here, we introduce a protocol for the preparation of alkyl aryl sulfones under mild conditions. This protocol employs β-thioamide sulfone as a novel sulfone motif donor. It forms sulfinates in situ under basic conditions, which then undergo cross-coupling with the intermediates that were generated from ligand-free copper-catalyzed cyclopropenes (CPEs) ring opening.