Chemistry of Oxaziridines. 1. Synthesis and Structure of 2-Arenesulfonyl-3-aryloxaziridines. A New Class of Oxaziridines

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ja00526a040

A new class of oxaziridine derivatives, 2-arenesulfonyl-3-aryloxaziridines (2), is prepared by m-CPBA oxidation of sulfonimines (RSO2N=CHAr).These compounds are the first stable examples of this ring system to have a substituent other than carbon attached to nitrogen and are characterized by a highly electrophilic oxaziridine oxygen atom.These oxaziridines have the E configuration as determined by X-ray crystallography.The presence of the powerful electron-attracting sulfonyl group attached to nitrogen apparently has little effect on the structure of the oxaziridine three-membered ring.Of more significance are the observations that the nitrogen lone pair in 2 is opposite to one of the sulfonyl oxygens and that the long S-N bond length implies little if any conjugative interaction between sulfur and nitrogen.Attempts to prepare oxaziridines via oxidation of sulfonimines, 5, derived from acetophenone gave imidoyl ether 14, a novel Baeyer-Villiger oxidation product of a C-N double bond.