Acid-mediated formation of trifluoromethyl sulfonates from sulfonic acids and a hypervalent iodine trifluoromethylating agent.

A variety of sulfonic acids have been trifluoromethylated using 1-trifluoromethyl-1,2-benziodoxol-3(1H)-one under mild conditions in good to excellent yields. Initial mechanistic investigations of this reaction show a clean second-order kinetics and only very weak substrate electronic effects.