“…By way of contrast, the existing methods include stoichiometric use of mercuric acetate (Challenger et al, 1953), mercuric oxide/acetic anhydride (Overberger and Bonsignore, 1958), polymer-supported selenoxide and telluroxide reagents (Hu et al, 1986), dimethyl sulfate followed by acid hydrolysis (Degani et al, 1994), epoxycyclohexane (Barbero et al, 1996) and potassium permanganate under phase transfer conditions (Aitken et al, 1997c). Compound 2 is long known to be a convenient precursor for synthesis of the useful unsaturated heterocycles 3 and 4 (Mayer and Gebhardt, 1964), and there have been various recent applications of the product 2 including as a component of the electrolyte in high-temperature batteries (Ihara et al, 2008), as a key intermediate in the chemical recycling of waste polycarbonate (Hata et al, 2003), and as a precursor for binuclear iron-sulfur carbonyl complexes (Lagadec et al, 1987; Xiao et al, 2017).…”