Heterogeneous copper‐catalyzed oxidative coupling of oxime acetates with sodium sulfinates: An efficient and practical synthesis of β‐keto sulfones

Abstract

An efficient and practical route to β‐keto sulfones has been developed through heterogeneous oxidative coupling of oxime acetates with sodium sulfinates by using an MCM‐41‐supported Schiff base‐pyridine bidentate copper (II) complex [MCM‐41‐Sb,Py‐Cu (OAc)2] as the catalyst and oxime acetates as an internal oxidant, followed by hydrolysis. The reaction generates a variety of β‐keto sulfones in good to excellent yields. This new heterogeneous copper (II) catalyst can be easily prepared via a simple procedure from readily available and inexpensive reagents and exhibits the same catalytic activity as Cu (OAc)2. MCM‐41‐Sb,Py‐Cu (OAc)2 is also easy to recover and is recyclable up to eight times with almost consistent activity.