An efficient alkali hydroxide-mediated SNAr reaction of heteroaryl halides has been developed for the practical synthesis of the useful unsymmetrical heteroaryl thioethers and chalcogenides. The usually odorless, easily available, lowly toxic, and easily stored and handled diorganyl dichalcogenides can be used as safer and convenient chalcogen nucleophile precursors and diverse unsymmetrical heteroaryl chalcogenides can be obtained in good to high yields by the method.
