A mild and efficient method for the protection of carbonyl compounds as oxathiolanes, dithiolanes and dithianes catalyzed by molybdenyl acetylacetonate

Carbonyl compounds have been successfully converted into their corresponding oxathiolane, dithiolane and dithiane derivatives in excellent yields with 2-mercaptoethanol, 1,2-ethanedithiol and 1,3-propanedithiol using a catalytic amount of molybdenyl acetylacetonate.