Sulfoxide‐Promoted Chlorination of Indoles and Electron‐Rich Arenes with Chlorine as Nucleophile

Abstract An efficient chlorination of indoles and electron‐rich arenes with chlorine anion as nucleophile is described. With the use of ethyl phenyl sulfoxide as the promoter, the reaction went smoothly under metal‐free and mild conditions. Various indoles and electron‐rich arenes are converted into the corresponding chlorinated compounds in moderate to excellent yields. A plausible interrupted Pummerer reaction mechanism was proposed without the oxidation of chloride anion. In addition, the byproduct thioether could be easily converted to the starting material sulfoxide just by a simple oxidation reaction. magnified image