Sulfur-Promoted Decarboxylative Sulfurative Hexamerization of Phenylacetic Acids: Direct Approach to Hexabenzylidyne Tetrasulfides.

During our experiments aimed at understanding the reaction pathways by which arylacetic acids were oxidatively decarboxylated and condensed with different nucleophiles in the presence of elemental sulfur, these acids have been treated with sulfur powder in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and N-methylpiperidine in the absence of nucleophiles, producing a remarkable symmetrical sulfurated hexamer consisting of six benzylidyne moieties and four sulfur atoms.