Efficient and Highly Selective Aqueous Oxidation of Sulfides to Sulfoxides at Room Temperature Catalysed by Supported Iron Oxide Nanoparticles on SBA-15

The present manuscript describes a simple, efficient and environmentally friendly room temperature aqueous catalytic approach to the selective preparation of sulfoxides from sulfides utilising low-loaded supported iron oxide nanoparticles and aqueous hydrogen peroxide as oxidant. Materials could be easily recovered from the reaction mixture and reused ten times without any loss in activity and no metal leaching was observed during the reaction. This is thus the first selective aqueous oxidation of sulfides using an iron-based heterogeneous system.