Tamás E. Gunda, László Tamás, Szabolcs Sályi, Csaba Nemes and Ferenc Sztaricskai:
A Very Mild and Quantitative Oxidation of Cephalosporins with Dimethyldioxirane
Tetrahedron Letters, 36, 7111-7114 (1995)

Abstract: The cephalosporins 1-3 and Δ²-cephem 4 were oxidized in quantative yields to their sulfones with dimethyldioxirane. While in the case of 2-methylene-cephems (5,6) the exocyclic double bond oxidized simultaneously to the corresponding epoxide, the 3-vinyl derivative (8) or 3-methylene-cephems (7) gave selectively the corresponding vinyl sulfone.