The reaction between acetylenes and sulfoxides, studied as a test case for gold-catalyzed intermolecular addition, provides the oxyarylation compounds 3 in good yields. Unpredictably, in all cases a single regioisomer arising from the electrophilic aromatic alkylation at the position adjacent to the sulfur atom is obtained instead of the expected Friedel-Crafts regioisomer. A new concerted mechanism based on DFT calculations is proposed to account for the products in this intermolecular gold(I)-catalyzed reaction.

An efficient and broad-scoped method for the preparation of unsymmetrical ethers from alcohols catalysed by the simplest and least expensive gold catalyst, NaAuCl(4), is described for the first time. The procedure enables the etherification of benzylic and tertiary alcohols with moderate to good yields under mild conditions with low catalyst loading. Symmetrical ethers, the usual side products in the etherification of alcohols, were not detected in this case. The formation of the racemic ether from a chiral benzyl alcohol suggests the intermediacy of a carbocation, which has not previously been postulated for gold-catalysed reactions involving alcohols.

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A new catalytic cycle for the enantioselective protonation of cyclic ketone enolates with sulfinyl alcohols has been developed. An enol trifluoroacetate that can be easily obtained from the corresponding ketone is used for the first time as an enolate precursor of a cyclic ketone enolate. In this method, the achiral alcohol plays two roles: it is involved, as is usual in catalytic asymmetric protonation reactions, in the turnover of the chiral proton source and also in the generation of a