S-arylation of mercaptobenzimidazoles using Cu(I) catalysts—experimental and theoretical observations

Substituted 2-mercaptobenzimidazoles (MBI) are an important class of bio-active and industrially important organic compounds. In this Letter, a new synthetic method is presented for the selective S-arylation of MBI with substituted aryl iodides using low cost copper (I) iodide and 1,10-phenanthroline as a catalytic system. The selective formation of S-arylated product was confirmed by several spectroscopic techniques and the vibrational spectrum was found to be in very good agreement with the theoretical spectrum calculated by density functional theory.