Hydrodefluorination of perfluoroalkyl groups using silylium-carborane catalysts. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Carbon-fluorine bonds are among the most unreactive functionalities in chemistry. Interest in their activation arises in part from the high global warming potentials of anthropogenic polyfluoroorganic compounds. Conversion to carbon-hydrogen bonds (hydrodefluorination) is the simplest modification of carbon-fluorine bonds, but efficient catalytic hydrodefluorination of perfluoroalkyl groups has been an unmet challenge. We report a class of carborane-supported, highly electrophilic silylium compounds that act as long-lived catalysts for hydrodefluorination of trifluoromethyl and nonafluorobutyl groups by widely accessible silanes under mild conditions. The reactions are completely selective for aliphatic carbon-fluorine bonds in preference to aromatic carbon-fluorine bonds.

published proceedings

  • Science

altmetric score

  • 12.25

author list (cited authors)

  • Douvris, C., & Ozerov, O. V.

citation count

  • 454

complete list of authors

  • Douvris, Christos||Ozerov, Oleg V

publication date

  • August 2008