A Facile Zinc(II) Chloride Assisted Desulfurization of High-Nitrogen Heterocycles

High-nitrogen heterocycles are important to fields as diverse as pharmaceuticals and energetic materials. However, their synthesis can often be inconvenient or involve toxic precursors. In this work, we synthesize 1-substituted-5H-tetrazoles via the desulfurization of readily available 1-substituted-1H-tetrazole-5-thiones via a zinc chloride assisted desulfurization providing a new, safe, and efficient process with higher yields than the traditional desulfurization methods.