One-pot synthesis of 2-acylbenzothiazoles from 2-aminobenzenethiols and arylacetonitriles via cyclization and sequential oxidation

Abstract An efficient one-pot method to access 2-acylbenzothiazoles via AlCl3-mediated cyclization reaction and I2-promoted sequential oxidation reaction of 2-aminobenzenethiols with arylacetonitriles was developed. This reaction proceeds smoothly with a wide range of arylacetonitriles containing different functional groups to give the corresponding products in moderate to good yields under mild conditions. Moreover, this reaction was conveniently conducted on a gram scale, and the yield is still up to 68%.