Highly Enantioselective Iron‐Catalyzed Sulfide Oxidation with Aqueous Hydrogen Peroxide under Simple Reaction Conditions

An attractive alternative to the currently existing methods for the metal-catalyzed oxidation of sulfides to sulfoxides is asymmetric iron-catalyzed oxidation with hydrogen peroxide as the terminal oxidant (see scheme). In the presence of a benzoic acid derivative, this simple process provides sulfoxides with up to 96 % ee in moderate to good yields (up to 78 %).