Synthesis, Stability, and Reactivity of Azidofluoroalkanes

Petr Beier provides insight into the chemistry of azidofluoroalkanes.

Organic azides constitute a very important class of compounds in synthetic, medicinal and biological chemistry and their preparation is often based on nucleophilic displacement of carbon-bound leaving groups starting from alkali metal azides. The synthetic utility of organic azides is very broad, encompassing reactions with electrophiles, nucleophiles, thermal or photo decomposition to nitrenes, and azide–alkyne cycloaddition to 1,2,3-triazoles. For the latter, when catalyzed by Cu(I) salts, the term ‘click reaction’ has been coined because of its reliability, high efficiency and broad substrate scope, and it has been widely used in synthetic chemistry, diversity-oriented synthesis, medicinal chemistry and materials science. Some organic azides, such as azidothymidine, even display interesting biological activities.

The group of Dr. Petr Beier at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences, Prague (Czech Republic) has been active in the chemistry of fluorinated C1 and C2 building blocks and methodology development for some time, and recently the idea of investigating the properties and reactivity of fluorinated azides such as azidotrifluoromethane and azidodifluoromethane arose.

Read the full article Synthesis, Stability, and Reactivity of Azidofluoroalkanes