Selective oxidation of organic sulfides by mononuclear and dinuclear peroxotungsten(VI) complexes

Clean conversion of a variety of sulfides and dibenzothiophene (DBT) to the corresponding sulfoxide or sulfone could be achieved in high yields at room temperature using mononuclear as well as dinuclear diperoxo complexes of tungsten as oxidants, by a variation of reaction conditions. The compounds could also effectively catalyze oxidation of sulfides by H2O2 to selectively yield sulfone with reasonably good turnover frequency (TOF).