Mild Copper-Catalyzed Fluorination of Alkyl Triflates with Potassium Fluoride

A chemoselective catalytic fluorination of alkyl triflates is described using potassium fluoride as a fluoride source. Excellent yields of the desired alkyl fluorides are obtained after one hour at 45 degrees C using 2 mol% of the copper catalyst. With 10 mol% of the catalyst, full conversion can be achieved in less than 10 minutes at 45 degrees C, and thus makes this procedure potentially suited for the preparation of 18F-labeled PET probes. As a result of the mild reaction conditions, only the substitution products are observed with no evidence of common side reactions, such as elimination. Reported is a preliminary study of the reaction scope, which demonstrates that the fluorination can be performed in the presence of a wide range of functional groups. Evidence suggests an unusual role of the [IPrCuOTf] catalyst as a phase-transfer catalyst and points to [IPrCuF] as the active fluorinating reagent (IPr= 1,3-bis( 2,6-diisopropylphenyl) imidazol-2-ylidene).