Facile Cleavage of Activated Ketones: An Access to Thioethers Generation of Anhydrides by Pummerer-Type Rearrangement.

Herein, we report an oxygen insertion in activated ketones from simple inorganic carbonates for the synthesis of symmetric aromatic anhydrides. For the first time, LiCO acts as an oxygen source and the generated symmetric aromatic anhydrides undergo Pummerer-type rearrangement to access α-benzoyloxy-thioethers. Attractively, this protocol occurs under metal-, ligand-, and oxidant-free conditions and is compatible with a wide range of substrates.