Over the past decade, the most significant, conceptual advances in the field of fluorination were enabled most prominently by organo- and transition-metal catalysis. The most challenging transformation remains the formation of the parent C-F bond, primarily as a consequence of the high hydration energy of fluoride, strong metal-fluorine bonds, and highly polarized bonds to fluorine. Most fluorination reactions still lack generality, predictability, and cost-efficiency. Despite all current limitations, modern fluorination methods have made fluorinated molecules more readily available than ever before and have begun to have an impact on research areas that do not require large amounts of material, such as drug discovery and positron emission tomography. This Review gives a brief summary of conventional fluorination reactions, including those reactions that introduce fluorinated functional groups, and focuses on modern developments in the field.

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Introduction of Fluorine and Fluorine-Containing Functional Groups

Recent advances in catalysis have made the incorporation of fluorine into complex organic molecules easier than ever before, but selective, general and practical fluorination reactions remain sought after. Fluorination of molecules often imparts desirable properties, such as metabolic and thermal stability, and fluorinated molecules are therefore frequently used as pharmaceuticals or materials. But the formation of carbon-fluorine bonds in complex molecules is a significant challenge. Here we discuss reactions to make organofluorides that have emerged within the past few years and which exemplify how to overcome some of the intricate challenges associated with fluorination.

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Catalysis for fluorination and trifluoromethylation

“All new is well-forgotten old”, the proverb goes. The current “fluorine boom” is news only to a novice in the field: the exceptional importance of fluorinated organic compounds in numerous areas has been known for a long time. The sharpest increase in the number of fluorine-containing pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals is dated back to 30 years ago. Also around that time (1979), the first monograph devoted to industrial applications of organofluorine compounds was published, covering not only fluorine-containing biologically active materials but also refrigerants, propellants, surfactants, textile chemicals, polymers, and dyes. The increasingly broad realization of the key role of organofluorine compounds in numerous areas has recently attracted many new scientists to the field. The development of new methods for the selective introduction of fluorine and fluorinecontaining groups into organic molecules for biologically active and other useful materials has become a hot area. Over 100 reviews, book chapters, and highlights on this subject have appeared in the literature in the past few years. As citing all of these publications in this review article is impossible, we provide references to only the most recent, general, and comprehensive ones. Molecules bearing a trifluoromethyl group constitute one of the most important classes of selectively fluorinated compounds. As early as 1928, Lehmann reported his observations of biological activity of some trifluoromethylated organic derivatives and already in 1959 Yale published a detailed review article entitled “The Trifluoromethyl Group in Medicinal Chemistry”. Since then, numerous books and reviews have appeared in the literature covering various aspects of trifluoromethylated organic and organometallic compounds. Within this family, derivatives bearing the CF3 group on aromatic rings are particularly numerous and important. Some examples of such compounds used as active ingredients of pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals are shown in Scheme 1. Trifluoromethylated building blocks and intermediates are clearly needed to make such molecules. The simplest trifluoromethylated aromatic compound, benzotrifluoride, was originally prepared by Swarts at the end of the 19th century. In his work, Swarts treated benzotrichloride with “two thirds of its weight of antimony fluoride” to obtain a mixture of PhCF2Cl and PhCF3, from which the two were separated and isolated pure by distillation. In the early 1930s, two industrial groups, one from Kinetic Chemicals, Inc. and one from I. G. Farbenindustrie AG patented their discoveries on the successful use of HF instead of SbF3 for the Swarts reaction. These inventions were the starting point for the modern large-scale manufacturing of trifluoromethylated aromatics. Other methods have been developed for conversion of various C1 units on the ring to CF3 with a variety of fluorinating agents. While representing an outstanding discovery and a classic of organic and organofluorine chemistry, the Swarts reaction is nonetheless neither atom-economical nor environmentally benign, as it deals with stoichiometric quantities of hazardous chemicals and generates large amounts of chlorine waste. To convert a CH3 group on the ring to CF3, the methyl is first exhaustively chlorinated to produce 3 equiv of HCl as a

Aromatic Trifluoromethylation with Metal Complexes

Large-scale applications of transition metal-catalyzed couplings for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals.

Tetrahedron report number 221

Trifluoromethylation of aromatic compounds

Aldol Reaction of Iododifluoroacetate-Zn and 2,2-Difluoroketene Silyl Acetal.

Synthesis of 2,2-difluoroesters by iododifluoroacetate-copper with organic halides

Synthesis of 3,3-difluoro-2-azetidinones and 2,3-dideoxy-2,2-difluoro-3-amino-sugars through the reformatsky reaction of difluoroacetate with imine

1α, 25-Dihydroxy-26, 26, 26, 27, 27, 27-hexafluorocholesterol was synthesized by two procedures. Cholenic acid was converted to the 1α-hydroxy-24-sulfone derivative and hexafluoroacetone was reacted with the lithiated 24-sulfone. Subsequent removal of the sulfonyl group afforded the hexafluoro-1α, 25-dihydroxy compound. An alternative process consists of construction of the hexafluoro-25-hydroxy part on the side chain followed by the introduction of a hydroxy group at the 1α-position. The hexafluoro derivative was converted to the vitamin D form, 1α, 25-dihydroxyhexafluorovitamin D3, via the corresponding 5, 7-diene.

Yoshiro Kobayashi

Papers

Trifluoromethylation of aromatic compounds

Aldol Reaction of Iododifluoroacetate-Zn and 2,2-Difluoroketene Silyl Acetal.

Synthesis of 2,2-difluoroesters by iododifluoroacetate-copper with organic halides

Synthesis of 3,3-difluoro-2-azetidinones and 2,3-dideoxy-2,2-difluoro-3-amino-sugars through the reformatsky reaction of difluoroacetate with imine

Studies on Organic Fluorine Compounds. XXXIX. Studies on Steroids. LXXIX. Synthesis of 1α, 25-Dihydroxy-26, 26, 26, 27, 27, 27-hexafluorovitamin D3