Recent Advances in the Catalytic Synthesis of Arylsulfonyl Compounds

Arylsulfonyl compounds are among the most important compounds in pharmaceutical and medicinal chemistry. Hence, a wide variety of sulfonylation methods have been reported recently. This review summarizes arylsulfonylation methodologies developed in the last 5 years and includes two major categories. The first entails direct arylsulfonylation and the second multicomponent arylsulfonylation. In direct arylsulfonylation, arylsulfonyl reagents react with C-H activated compounds, alkynes, and alkenes through coupling or addition reactions. In multicomponent reactions, arylation reagents and various substrates react with sulfur dioxide surrogates, such as DABSO, Na2S2O5, and K2S2O5. Arylsulfonyl hydrazides, aryl boronic acids, aryl silanes, and aryl halides are the most widely employed arylation reagents that react with sulfur dioxide surrogates to generate an arylsulfonyl source, and ensuing reactions proceed via pathways analogous to those of direct arylsulfonylation.