1. Transition Metal-Templated Reduction of Carbon-Fluorine Bonds:
A New General Route to Unsaturated Fluorocarbon Ligands
Russell P. Hughes, Department of Chemistry, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH 03755
Selective reduction of ligated fluoroalkyl groups to give unsaturated fluorinated ligands can be achieved; the reactions are mediated and templated by transition metal centers.
2Na/Pb alloy, THF, -78°C F I r C C O
2KC8
CF3 I
Our methodology allows the first examples of a variety of new ligands to be isolated; shown here is the first example of a metal carbene complex containing two electron withdrawing CF3 substituents, and its further reduction to yield a perfluoroallene complex.1
CF3
4KC8
Our long term goals are to devise methods for the reductive remediation and/or selective chemical functionalization of environmentally harmful fluorocarbons.
(1) Yuan, J.; Hughes, R. P.; Rheingold, A. L., Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 2007,