New tri- and difluoromethylations and difluoromethylenations

FLUO 9

G. K. Surya Prakash, gprakash@usc.edu, Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1661
The development of methods for the efficient synthesis of fluorinated molecules is blooming because of fluorine's ability (high electronegativity and its relatively close size to hydrogen) to exert special properties on organic molecules. Last decades have also witnessed the profound use of fluorinated compounds in material science, agrochemistry and pharmaceutical industry. Although methods for selective mono and perfluorinations are well developed, similar approaches are not compatible for preparation of the corresponding trifluoromethylated compounds. We have discovered that trimethylsilyltrifluoromethane, TMSCF3, as an efficient trifluoromethylating agent for a variety of electrophiles under catalytic and autocatalytic conditions (using nucleophiles). Our recent stereoselective synthesis of biologically important alfa-trifluoromethylated methylamines, allylic amines and ethylenediamines, as well as many other important fluorinated derivatives will be described. The bulk of the presentation will include new discoveries using sulfur based trifluoro- and difluromethyl synthons.