The Preparation of Vinylenedi-Isothiocyanate

The preparation and some properties of vinylene dithiocyanate were described by Söderbäck 1 in 1925 and, more recently, in 1969 some substituted thiocyanato-isothiocyanato ethylenes by Zbiral and Hengstberger 2 . We have reported on the formation of isothiocyanates by the fission of N-heterocyclic compounds in the presence of thiophosgene and base 3 . This paper describes a further application of this method to the preparation of vinylenedi-isothiocyanate (1) from imidazole.