Facile Synthetic Route to [3.n]Thiacyclophanes through Ring-Closing Metathesis and their Structural Studies

Abstract

We report a useful synthetic strategy to assemble constrained [3.n] thiacyclophanes using Grignard reaction and Ti(OiPr)4 assisted ring-closing metathesis (RCM). This method is viable to access para, metapara, and meta isomers of thiacyclophanes. The structures of thiacyclophanes were confirmed unambiguously by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies and compared with computationally optimized structures. It is implied that out of four methods (ab initio and DFT), MP2/6-31G (d,p) is reasonably a better method for predicting structural parameters for this class of thiacyclophanes.