Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-4-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-2/section-i/35/c/ii/solution

Sulfuryl chloride converts the aryl thiol into an electrophilic sulfur reagent, conveniently represented as after chlorination and dehydrogenation. Triethylamine traps the generated acid. The pyrrole's two positions are already occupied; its less deactivated remaining carbon, C4, attacks electrophilic sulfur, displacing chloride. Loss of the C4 proton restores the aromatic ring and gives the C4 arylthio-substituted pyrrole.
The net new bond is C(pyrrole)–S(aryl). Sulfur is retained from the thiol and becomes a thioether; the transformation is not sulfonylation by transfer of sulfuryl chloride's SO group. Possible disulfide formation during thiol chlorination does not change the electrophilic-sulfenylation logic of the final ring substitution.

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