Synthetic Applications of Symmetrical Disulfides and Their Synthesis from Non-thiolic Substrates

Abstract Organic disulfides are frequently found in many fields of science, ranging from chemistry to materials science to biology. While symmetrical disulfides, which have the same substitutions on the two sulfurs, are often final products, they are mostly employed as reactants and catalysts in various reactions. In addition to their usage as catalysts, their synthetic applications as reactants can arbitrarily be categorized into three types: (1) surrogates for the corresponding thiols, (2) reactants for unsymmetrical disulfides, and (3) reactants or intermediates for the other compounds. Although the straightforward, traditional way to obtain symmetrical disulfides (RSSR) is the oxidation of their parental thiols (RSH), they can also be obtained from non-thiolic compounds. This short review covers representative synthetic applications of symmetrical disulfides and their preparation methods in which the starting materials are not the corresponding thiols. 1 Introduction 2 Synthetic Applications of Symmetric Disulfides 2.1 Surrogates for Thiols 2.2 Synthesis of Unsymmetrical Disulfides 2.3 As Reactants and Intermediates 3 Synthesis of Symmetrical Disulfides from Non-thiolic Substrates 3.1 Synthesis from Organic Halides 3.2 Synthesis from Sulfonic Acid Derivatives 3.3 Synthesis from Sulfinic Acid Derivatives 3.4 Miscellaneous 4 Conclusion