Sulfonium
any cation containing a positively charged sulfur with 3 bonds
In organic chemistry, a sulfonium ion, also known as sulphonium ion or sulfanium ion, is a positively charged ion (a "cation") featuring three organic substituents attached to sulfur. These organosulfur compounds have the formula [SR3]+. Together with a negatively charged counterion, they give sulfonium salts. They are typically colorless solids that are soluble in polar organic solvent.
Synthesis
Sulfonium compounds are usually synthesized by the reaction of thioethers with alkyl halides. For example, the reaction of dimethyl sulfide with iodomethane yields trimethylsulfonium iodide:
CH3SCH3 + CH3I → (CH3)3S+I−
The reaction proceeds by a nucleophilic substitution mechanism (SN2), where iodide is the leaving group. For weakly electrophilic alkyl halides, the reactions can be accelerated by the addition of silver tetrafluoroborate. In that vein, the rate (and irreversibility) of methylation improves with more electrophilic methylating agents such as methyl trifluoromethanesulfonate.
These S-alkylations can be reversible, especially when the leaving group is iodide. For example, alkylation of dimethylsulfide with allyl iodide gives trimethylsulfonium iodide.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sulfonium” as any cation containing a positively charged sulfur with 3 bonds. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sulfonium” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.