Efficient Oxidation of Sulfides to the Sulfoxides Using Zirconium (IV) Chloride, Sodium Nitrite and Catalytic Amounts of Bromide Ion as a Novel Oxidizing Media

Chemo and homoselective catalytic oxidation of sulfides has been developed. A variety of aliphatic and aromatic sulfides are subjected to the sulfoxidation reaction using ZrCl4, NaNO2 and catalytic amounts of KBr or NaBr in the presence of wet SiO2 (50 % w/w) in acetonitrile at room temperature.