Synthesis and properties of new types of sulfoxide‐ or sulfone‐bridged lewis acids

Abstract A series of new types of sulfur‐bridged Lewis acids were synthesized. The ligands that contained the sulfoxide or sulfone as the joint moieties of two phenols were found to quantitatively give Lewis acids. These obtained Lewis acids also have good discrimination properties of some epoxides. The reaction prop erties of the Lewis acids were studied using the rearrangement of the epoxides to carbonyl compounds.