Transfer of sulfur from arsenic and antimony sulfides to phosphorus sulfides. Rational syntheses of several less-common P4Sn species

It has been shown that triphenylarsenic sulfide and triphenylantimony sulfide rapidly transfer sulfur to a number of the known phosphorus sulfides. The reactions are performed at or below room temperature in carbon disulfide solutions. The transfers are neither highly selective nor random, making them useful but not ideal for synthetic purposes. The moderate selectivities of the reactions have been used in the assignment of structures to two new phosphorus sulfides, structures with molecular formulas P4S6 and P4S8 The reactions of P4S3 are unusual in that products with 7-9 sulfur atoms in the molecule are formed competitively with low sulfur products. The usefulness of triphenylantimony sulfide is limited by its tendency to undergo reductive elimination of sulfur. This reduction takes the form of a disproportionation to give triphenylantimony and elemental sulfur and has been shown to occur by a second-order process that appears to involve the formation of disulfur, S-2.