Dealkylative intercepted rearrangement reactions of sulfur ylides.

Sulfur ylides are well-known to undergo sigmatropic rearrangement reaction. Herein, we describe a novel reactivity of sulfur ylides, which provides access to the product of a formal functional group metathesis upon dealkylative interception of the rearrangement process. Using a simple iron catalyst and in situ generated diazoalkanes this method provides access to α-mercaptoacetonitrile derivatives.