Sulfonyl azides are very valuable reagents in organic chemical transformations such as the preparation of α-diazocarbonyl compounds 119. Hasegawa K , Arai S , Nishida A. Synthesis of α-diazo-β-hydroxyesters through a one-pot protocol by phase-transfer catalysis: application to enantioselective aldol-type reaction and diastereoselective synthesis of α-amino-β-hydroxyester derivatives . Tetrahedron . 2006 ; 62 : 1390 . doi: 10.1016/j.tet.2005.11.028

However, these methodologies often suffer from complex procedures, long reaction times, and low yields. Thus, there is a great demand for the development of new convenient and eco-friendly synthetic methods toward assessing sulfonyl azides.

Sulfonyl azides have efficiently been synthesized via a convenient and environmentally benign procedure, in which sulfonyl chlorides undergo nucleophilic substitution reaction with sodium azide in PEG-400 under mild conditions. The sulfonyl azides were obtained in 84–97% isolated yields. Researchers from Chengdu Institute of Biology carried out this research.