Palladium-catalyzed carbon-sulfur or carbon-phosphorus bond metathesis by reversible arylation

Teaching sulfur and phosphorus to share Wouldn't it be nice if real chemistry worked like a modeling kit, and you could just pull a group off one molecule and tack it onto another? Lian et al. report that palladium catalysis can swap aryl rings between pairs of organosulfur or organophosphorus fragments in just this way. They showcase the sulfur swap by breaking down the commercial thermoplastic polyphenylene sulfide into simple monomers. Science , this issue p. 1059