Unusual reactions of Grignard reagents toward fluoroalkylated esters

Fluorine-containing esters were demonstrated to be convenient substrates for construction of the corresponding ketones by low temperature reaction with Grignard reagents followed by warming up to 0 degrees C, while heating the mixture up to 80 degrees C readily promoted the reduction of the ketones obtained by the generated magnesium alkoxides whose mechanism was speculated as Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley type reduction by computational technique. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.