Metal- and Additive-Free Oxidation of Sulfides into Sulfoxides by Fullerene-Modified Carbon Nitride with Visible-Light Illumination.

Photocatalytic selective oxidation has attracted considerable attention as an environmentally friendly strategy for organic transformations. Some methods have been reported for the photocatalytic oxidation of sulfides into sulfoxides in recent years. However, the practical application of these processes is undermined by several challenges, such as low selectivity, sluggish reaction rates, the requirement of UV-light irradiation, the use of additives, and the instability of the photocatalyst. Herein, a metal-free C60 /graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3 N4 ) composite photocatalyst was fabricated by a facile method, and well characterized by TEM, SEM, FTIR spectroscopy, XRD, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The C60 /g-C3 N4 catalyst exhibited a high photocatalytic activity at room temperature for the selective oxidation of sulfides into the corresponding sulfoxides in the presence of other functional groups, due to the synergetic roles of C60 and g-C3 N4 . Several important parameters have been screened, and this method afforded good to excellent yields of sulfoxides under optimal conditions. The superoxide radical (. O2- ) and singlet oxygen (1 O2 ) were identified as the oxidative species for the oxidation of sulfides into sulfoxides by exploring EPR experiments, and hence, a plausible mechanism for this oxidation was proposed. Moreover, the C60 /g-C3 N4 catalyst can be easily recovered by filtration and then reused at least four times without loss in activity.