Approximately 20–30% of modern pharmaceuticals and
agrochemicals contain fluorine atoms, because fluorinated
compounds are more difficult to oxidize, leading to in-
creased metabolic stability and bioavailability over their
non-fluorinated analogues.[1] As a consequence, rapidly in-
creasing efforts have focused on developing valuable strat-
egies, reagents, and catalysts for the incorporation of, for ex-
ample, CF3 into various organic structures through nucleo-
philic, electrophilic, and radical trifluoromethylations.[2a–f] In
this context, a major challenge is the development and uti-
lization of diverse CF3 sources.[2] for example, (trifluorome-
thyl)trimethylsilane (TMSCF3, Ruppert–Prakash reagent)
has been widely used to provide a nucleophilic CF3 species
in various transformations.[2a–f] On the other hand, Yagupol-
skii and co-workers described the first electrophilic perfluor-
Brønsted acids as activators.[7b] In addition, using Togniꢁs re-
agent 4a, a number of elegant transition-metal catalyzed tri-
fluoromethylations have been reported. Examples includes
Cu-catalyzed allylic trifluoromethylation of terminal ole-
fins,[7c,d] Re-catalyzed trifluoromethylation of (hetero)
ACHTUNGTRENNUNG
AHCTUNGTRENNUNG
vinyltrifluoroborates,[7g] and [Cu
ACTHNUGTRENNUG(MeCN)4]PF6-catalyzed ole-
finic trifluoromethylation of enamides.[7h] As an application
of Togniꢁs reagent 4b, the Cu-catalyzed trifluoromethylation
of arylboronate esters has also been described.[7i]
For the synthesis of perfluoroalkylating reagents 1a, aryl
perfluoroalkyl iodonium salts 1b were first prepared
through the condensation of bis(trifluoroacetoxy)iodoper-
fluoroalkanes with toluene in trifluoroacetic acid for three
days.[3,4a] However, (trifluoromethyl)aryliodonium salt 1b-
CF3 (Figure 1, 1b: when RF =CF3) has not yet been success-
fully prepared, since the corresponding synthetic intermedi-
À
À
oalkylation to construct S RF or Se RF bonds (RF =per
ACHTUNGTRENNUNG ACHTUNGTRENNUNG
ACHUTGTNRENNUGfluACHTUNGTERNoNUGN -
late based on aryl perfluoroalkyl iodonium salts 1a
(Figure 1) in 1978.[3] Since then, many synthetically useful
ates (CF3IACHTGUNTERNNU(G OCOCF3)2), CF3IF2, and CF3IO) have low stabili-
ty in comparison to their analogues having RF groups with
two or more carbons.[3,4a,8] Therefore, Togni and co-workers
prepared the cyclic hypervalent-iodine based tri
ACHUTGTNRENNUGfluACHTUNGTRENNUGoACHTUNGTRENNUNGroACHTUNGTRENNUNGmeth-
AHCTUNGTREUGNyNN lAHCNUTGERTNNUNGaACUTHNGTRENtNNUG ing reagents 4 through an alternative route in a straight-
forward three-step sequence from commercially available 2-
iodobenzoic acid or a 2-iodobenzylic alcohol using TMSCF3
as the CF3 source.[5] It is true that the preparation and the
use of a simple hypervalent iodo compound as a source of
electrophilic trifluoromethyl group has been a challenge to
organic chemists.[4a,8,9] Here, we report that the acyclic hy-
pervalent iodide trifluoromethylating species [PhICF3]+ de-
rived from 6a (Figure 1) can be detected by simple mixing
of PhIACHTNUGRTNEUNG
(OAc)2, TMSCF3 and KF and directly applied in sp2
À
C H trifluoromethylation reactions without any catalyst
under mild conditions.
Figure 1. Electrophilic RF/CF3 species.
Our initial observation of an electrophilic tri
ACHTUNGTENRfUNG luACTHUNGTRENNNGoU ACHTUNRTEGNGrNUN oACHTUNGTRENNUNGmethACHTUNGTRENNUNGyl-
electrophilic tri
flu
E
ro
E
yl
G
ACTUHNGTERNNUNaG ACHTUNGTREtNGNUN ion using 6a occurred during the investigation on the
methyl chalcogen salts 2 and oxonium salts 3 invented by
modification of the a-position of ketene dithioacetals.[10–12]
When we tested a-trifluoromethylation of the a-acetyl
ketene dithioacetal, 1-(1,3-dithiolan-2-ylidene) propan-2-one
(7a), the a-trifluoromethylated product, 3-(1,3-dithiolan-2-
ylidene)-4,4,4-trifluorobutan-2-one (8a), could be isolated in
52% yield simply by adding TMSCF3 (2.0 equiv) to a pre-
Umemoto and co-workers,[4] cyclic hypervalent iodine com-
pounds 4 developed by Togni and co-workers,[5] and tri
ACHTUNGTRENNUNGroACHTUNGTRENNUNG
Among these electrophilic trifluoromethylating reagents,
compounds 4 (Togniꢁs reagent) have proved to be quite effi-
cient.[5,7] They can not only react with soft nucleophiles such
as thiols, phenolates, phosphines, and active methylenes,[5]
but also proceed through O-trifluoromethylation of aliphatic
alcohols in the presence of catalytic amount of a zinc(II)
salt as an activator[7a] and N-trifluoromethylation of nitriles
in the presence of azoles through a Ritter-type reaction with
mixed mixture of 7a (0.5 mmol), PhIACTHNUTRGNENUG(OAc)2 (1.0 equiv), and
KF (2.0 equiv) in MeCN (3.0 mL) under N2 and then stirred
for 1.0 h at room temperature (Table 1, entry 1). Further
screening of oxidants showed that only hypervalent iodine
compounds could give the desired trifluoromethylated prod-
ucts (entries 1–8). Product 8a could be isolated in 88%
yield by increasing the amount of PhIACTHNUTRGENUN(G OAc)2 to 2.0 equiva-
lents (entry 9). Lower yields were obtained with increased
amounts of TMSCF3 and KF though the reactions were
completed in shorter time (entries 10 and 11). In addition,
DMF, CH2Cl2, and THF were less effective than MeCN in
the solvents tested (entries 12–14).
[a] C. Xu, J. Liu, W. Ming, Y. Liu, Dr. J. Liu, Prof. M. Wang, Prof. Q. Liu
Department of Chemistry, Northeast Normal University
Renmin Street 5268, 130024 Changchun (P.R. China)
Fax : (+86)431-85099759
CF3-containing olefins are important organic synthons.
However, relatively less attention has been paid to construct
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
À
the vinylic C CF3 bond. Recently, with Togniꢁs reagent 4 as
&
2
&
ꢀ 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Chem. Eur. J. 0000, 00, 0 – 0
ÝÝ
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