Organic symmetric disulfides have been broadly studied in various fields such
as synthetic intermediates for various organic transformations, agro-chemicals, biochemistry,
pharmacological chemistry, industrial polymers, peptidomimetics, self-assembled
monolayers (SAMs), etc. Owing to versatile applications, the search and development of
efficient, environmentally friendly, mild and inexpensive methods for the preparation of
organic disulfides play an important role in the organic functional group transformations.
Various aspects of the S–S bond formation are available in some books on organic functional
group transformations, as well as two review articles that have been published in the
years 2008 and 2014 highlighting the developments of disulfide bond formation using a
variety of reagents. However, investigations on new catalytic methods are being regularly
reported and new types of disulfides are synthesized. The present review has attempted to systematically summarize
recent catalytic advances in the process of S–S bond formation with a major focus since 2014 on highlighting
mechanistic considerations, scope, advantages, and limitations. This review does not include patent
literature.