Controlling the Cleavage of Carbon-Carbon Bonds To Generate α,α-Difluorobenzyl Carbanions for the Construction of Difluoromethylbenzenes

Controlling the cleavage of carbon carbon bonds during a chemical reaction is a substantial challenge; however, synthetic methods that accomplish this objective produce valuable and often unexplored reactivity. We have designed a mild process to generate alpha,alpha-difluorobenzyl carbanions in the presence of potassium carbonate by exploiting the cleavage of C-C bonds during the release of trifluoroacetate. The initiating reagent is potassium carbonate, which represents an improvement over existing protocols that require a strong base. Fragmentation studies across substituted arenes and heteroarenes were conducted along with computational analyses to elucidate reactivity trends. Furthermore, the mildly generated alpha,alpha-difluorobenzyl carbanions from electron-deficient aromatics and heteroaromatic rings can react with aldehydes to create derivatives of difluoromethylbenzenes, which are valuable synthetic targets.