Modular sulfondiimine synthesis using a stable sulfinylamine reagent

Sulfondiimines—the double aza-analogues of sulfones—hold significant potential as leads in discovery chemistry, yet their application in this arena has been held back by the scarcity of appropriate synthetic routes. Existing methods employ sulfides as substrates, and rely on consecutive imination reactions using the hazardous reagent O-mesitylenesulfonyl hydroxylamine. Here we report a method for sulfondiimine synthesis that does not begin with a sulfide or a thiol, and instead employs two Grignard reagents and a bespoke sulfinylamine (R—N═S═O) reagent as starting materials. Lewis acid-mediated assembly of these three components provides efficient access to a series of sulfilimine intermediates. A novel rhodium-catalyzed imination of these electron-rich sulfilimines then delivers a varied range of sulfondiimines featuring orthogonal N-functionalization. Conditions for the selective manipulation of both N-atoms of the sulfondiimines are reported, allowing access to a broad range of mono- and difunctionalized products. The oxidation of the sulfilimine intermediates is also described, and provides a complementary route to sulfoximines