A Peroxotungstate-Ionic Liquid Brush Assembly: an Efficient and Reusable Catalyst for Selectively Oxidizing Sulfides with Aqueous H2O2 Solution in Neat Water

An efficient and reusable heterogeneous catalytic assembly of peroxotungstate held in a ionic liquid (IL) brush was synthesized and an environmentally-friendly procedure was developed for selective oxidation of sulfides at room temperature using 30 wt.% hydrogen peroxide as the terminal oxidant and water as a sole solvent. No organic co-solvent or other additive was needed. A 1.5-2.0 mol% (based on W atom) loading catalyst was found to be sufficient for a smooth and clean reaction. Both aliphatic and aromatic sulfides were efficiently and selectively transformed into their respective sulfoxides or sulfones by simply controlling of equivalents of hydrogen peroxide. In addition to the high catalytic activity, the catalyst exhibits excellent chemoselectivity. Sensitive functional groups, such as double bond and hydroxyl, remained under the oxidation conditions the reaction even with an excess hydrogen peroxide. The catalyst was easily recovered (via simple filtration) and reused at least eight times without a noticeable loss of activity.