Modification of SBA-15 and evaluation its catalyticproperty in oxidation of sulfides to sulfones

Th e selective oxidation of sulfides has been a challenge for many years and is a useful transformation in organic chemistry (1,2). Unfortunately, most of the methods for this transformation, use toxic reagents or complex reaction procedures. In this way, when a homogeneous catalyst is used, require the separation of the catalyst, and consequently, a chromatographic procedure for the recovery is invariably inevitable (3). Due to our interest in the synthesis of organic compounds, (4,5) herein, in this study, the oxidation of sulfides to sulfones is investigated. Materials and Methods:All chemicals were bought from Merck except Pluronic P123 which was received from Aldrich. Th is paper describes a simple procedure for the synthesis andapplication of SBA-15/Im/WO42- as a novel nano catalyst in oxidation of sulfides to sulfones by 30%H2O2 as green oxidant under neutral aqueous reaction conditions. In a conical flask, H2O2 (2mmol) and SBA-15/Im/WO42- (0.09 mol %) were added to a solution of sulfide (1 mmol) andwater and the mixture was stirred magnetically at room temperature for 9 hours.Furthermore, in order to testify the recyclability of the catalyst, it is recovered and efficiencyreused in 4 succeeding reaction cycles without any significant loss.