Facile access to sodium arylsulfinates via nucleophilic C S bond cleavage of 2-(arylsulfonyl)pyrimidines

Described is a route to sodium arylsulfinates in their pure forms via the three-step sequence including the Cu-catalyzed CS cross-coupling of 4,5,6-trimethylpyrimidine-2(1H)-thione with aryl iodides followed by oxidation to yield the corresponding pyrimidinyl sulfones, which were converted to the desired sodium sulfinates by the nucleophilic CS cleavage using NaOMe and trituration for isolation and purification.