Thiol Activation toward Selective Thiolation of Aromatic C-H Bond

Direct C-S bond coupling is an attractive way to construct aryl sulfur ether, a building block for a variety of biological active molecules. Herein, we disclose an effective model for regioselective thiolation of the aromatic C-H bond by thiol activation instead of arene activation. Strikingly, this method has been applied into anisole derivatives that are not available in the arene activation approach to forge a single thioether isomer with high reactivity.