KI‐Facilitated Trifunctionalization of Maleimides in Water: Access to Disulfonylated Diazosuccinimide Derivatives and their Synthetic Applications

A trifunctionalization cascade reaction of substituted maleimides was developed to generate a series of disulfonylated diazosuccinimides in satisfactory yields by employing readily available sulfonyl hydrazides as both diazo source and sulfonylation reagent. The notable features of this developed method include avoiding the use of transition metal catalysts, environmentally benign H2O as the solvent, mild reaction conditions, good functional group tolerance, and the late‐stage modification of drugs. The derivatization reactions were effectively applied to synthesize aminosulfonylation‐substituted maleimides. The involved radical pathway was also demonstrated by mechanistic studies.