Synthesis and Structure of Diaryltellurium Disulfonates and Their Application for the α-Tosyloxylation of Ketones.

A concise and efficient synthetic route to a variety of functionalized diaryltellurium disulfonates () is presented. The hydrolysis of these diaryltellurium disulfonates () produces diarylhydroxytelluronium triflates (). The molecular structures of the diaryltellurium disulfonates and diarylhydroxytelluronium triflates were determined unambiguously using single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. To the best of our knowledge, this represents one of the very few reports on the solid-state structures of diaryltellurium disulfonates and diarylhydroxytelluronium triflates to date. The utility of the thus obtained diaryltellurium disulfonates was subsequently demonstrated via their application to the α-tosyloxylation of ketones, which also marks the first use of this class of compounds for this transformation.