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Updated: Jun 21, 2025

Metal-free Synthesis of Ynones from Acyl Chlorides and Potassium Alkynyltrifluoroborate Salts
Published on: February 24, 2015
Modified aryldifluorophenylsilicates with improved activity and selectivity in nucleophilic fluorination of secondary
Michal Trojan1, Adam Hroch1, Evelin Gruden2
1Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague Technická 5 166 28 Prague 6 Czech Republic kvicalaj@vscht.cz.
Abstract:
Nucleophilic fluorination of secondary aliphatic substrates, especially of halides, still remains a challenge. Among the available reagents, TBAT belongs to one of the best choices due to its stability, affordable price and low toxicity. With the aim to improve its selectivity, we synthesized three analogues modified in the aryl part of the TBAT reagent with one or two electron donating methoxy groups or with one electron withdrawing trifluoromethyl group. All three reagents are air-stable compounds and their structure was confirmed by a single crystal X-ray analysis. In testing the reactivity and selectivity of the reagents with a library of secondary bromides, as well as of other selected primary and secondary substrates, we found that substitution with methoxy groups mostly improves both reactivity and selectivity compared to TBAT, while the substitution with trifluoromethyl group leads to inferior results. Difluorosilicates modified by more than two electron donating methoxy groups proved to be unstable and decomposed spontaneously to the HF2 - anion. DFT calculations of tetramethylammonium analogues of the studied reagents disclosed that the substitution of the phenyl group with the methoxy substituent lowers the transitions state energy of the decomposition to a fluorosilane-fluoride complex, while the substitution with the trifluoromethyl group has an opposite effect.
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