One-pot synthesis of difluoromethyl ketones by a difluorination/fragmentation process

Difluoromethyl ketones are an under-studied class of ketones which have great potential as useful building blocks for materials and drug design. Here we report a simple and convenient synthesis of this class of compounds via a one-pot difluorination/fragmentation of 1-trifluoromethyl-1,3-diketones which should now allow the chemistry of difluoromethyl ketones to be fully developed.