A sustainable oxidative esterification of thiols with alcohols by a cobalt nanocatalyst supported on doped carbon

Here, we developed a new cobalt nanocatalyst supported on N-SiO2-doped activated carbon (Co/N-SiO2-AC), which exhibits excellent catalytic performance towards the oxidative esterification of (hetero)aryl and alkyl thiols with alcohols. A wide array of sulfinic esters were efficiently afforded in an exclusive chemoselective manner. The developed synthetic method proceeds with the merits of mild reaction conditions, broad substrate scope, operational simplicity, good functional group tolerance, earth-abundant and reusable cobalt catalysts, the utilization of renewable alcohols as the coupling partners and molecular O-2 as the sole oxidant, which offers a practical method for sustainable synthesis of sulfinic esters.