Electrochemical desulfurative borylation of thiols, disulfides, thioethers and thioacetals.

Kuzmin, Julius; Margarita, Cristiana; Winter, Johannes; Lundberg, Helena · Nat Commun · 2026

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Low-valent sulfur-containing compounds are abundant among natural and synthetic products but remain underutilized as starting materials in desulfurative transformations. Herein, we present thiols, disulfides, thioethers, and thioacetals as precursors in a direct desulfurative electrochemical process for the formation of alkylboronic esters, including late-stage functionalization of pharmaceutically relevant scaffolds and natural products. The electrochemical protocol is simple, user-friendly and scalable, successfully producing gram quantities of borylated product.