Lu Li, X. Mu, Wenbo Liu
May 3, 2016
Citations
1
Influential Citations
210
Citations
Quality indicators
Journal
Journal of the American Chemical Society
Abstract
We describe a simple, metal- and oxidant-free photochemical strategy for the direct trifluoromethylation of unactivated arenes and heteroarenes under either ultraviolet or visible light irradiation. We demonstrated that photoexcited aliphatic ketones, such as acetone and diacetyl, can be used as promising low-cost radical initiators to generate CF3 radicals from sodium triflinate efficiently. The broad utility of this strategy and its benefit to medicinal chemistry are demonstrated by the direct trifluoromethylation of unprotected bidentate chelating ligand, xanthine alkaloids, nucleosides, and related antiviral drug molecules.