A member of the class of tetrahydrothiophenes that is tetrahydrothiophene in which the sulfur has been oxidised to give the corresponding sulfone. A colourless, high-boiling (285degreeC) liquid that is miscible with both water and hydrocarbons, it is used as an industrial solvent, particularly for the purification of hydrocarbon mixtures by liquid-vapour extraction.
• Widely used as solvent in the nucleophilic displacement of chloroaromatics with F- (Halex fluorination). For example, chlorinated benzaldehydes were converted to their fluoro-analogues by heating with KF in tetramethylene sulfone at 220o: J. Fluorine Chem., 46, 529 (1990). Nitro groups have also been displaced by F- by heating in the presence of tetramethylammonium chloride and phthaloyl chloride as a nitrite trap: J. Org. Chem., 56, 6406 (1991). See, however, Tetrahydrothiophene 1-oxide, A17502 and Potassium fluoride, 14130.
• Can be doubly metallated at the ɑ-positions with strong bases such as NaNH2, LiNH2 or n-BuLi, and the resulting dianion reacted with one or two equivalents of benzophenone to give the mono- or bis-adduct respectively: J. Org. Chem., 35, 1834 (1970); J. Organomet. Chem., 59, 53 (1973). For alkylation of the monolithio-derivative, see: Synth. Commun., 18, 583 (1988).
• Use of this solvent makes possible the reduction of alkyl bromides to alkanes by NaBH4: Tetrahedron Lett., 3495 (1969).
• Solvent for the Baylis-Hillman reaction, using 1,4-Diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane, A14003, which enables short reaction times at room temperature: Tetrahedron Lett., 45, 1183 (2004).