Fluorochemicals from fluorspar via a phosphate-enabled mechanochemical process that bypasses HF.

All fluorochemicals-including elemental fluorine and nucleophilic, electrophilic, and radical fluorinating reagents-are prepared from hydrogen fluoride (HF). This highly toxic and corrosive gas is produced by the reaction of acid-grade fluorspar (>97% CaF2) with sulfuric acid under harsh conditions. The use of fluorspar to produce fluorochemicals via a process that bypasses HF is highly desirable but remains an unsolved problem because of the prohibitive insolubility of CaF2. Inspired by calcium phosphate biomineralization, we herein disclose a protocol of treating acid-grade fluorspar with dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4) under mechanochemical conditions. The process affords a solid composed of crystalline K3(HPO4)F and K2-xCay(PO3F)a(PO4)b, which is found suitable for forging sulfur-fluorine and carbon-fluorine bonds.

A General Approach to Deboronative Radical Chain Reactions with Pinacol Alkylboronic Esters.

The generation of carbon-centered radicals from air-sensitive organoboron compounds through nucleohomolytic substitution at boron is a general method to generate non-functionalized and functionalized radicals. Due to their reduced Lewis acidity, alkylboronic pinacol esters are not suitable substrates. We report their in situ conversion into alkylboronic catechol esters by boron-transesterification with a substoichiometric amount of catechol methyl borate combined with an array of radical chain processes. This simple one-pot radical-chain deboronative method enables the conversion of pinacol boronic esters into iodides, bromides, chlorides, and thioethers. The process is also suitable the formation of nitriles and allylated compounds through C-C bond formation using sulfonyl radical traps. The power of combining radical and classical boron chemistry is illustrated with a modular 5-membered ring formation using a combination of three-component coupling and protodeboronative cyclization.

Synthesis of Chiral Polyhydroxylated Benzimidazoles by a Tandem Radical Fragmentation/Cyclization Reaction: A Straight Avenue to Fused Aromatic-Carbohydrate Hybrids.

The synthesis of benzimidazole-fused iminosugars through a tandem ß-fragmentation-intramolecular cyclization reaction is described. The use of the benzimidazole ring as the internal nucleophile and the use of phenyliodosophthalate (PhI(Phth)), a new metal-free and low toxic hypervalent iodine reagent, are the most remarkable novelties of this synthetic strategy. With this approach, we have demonstrated the usefulness of the fragmentation of anomeric alkoxyl radicals promoted by the PhI(Phth)/I2 system for the preparation of new compounds with potential interest for both medicinal and synthetic chemists.

Investigation of a new "N2S2O2" chelating agent with high Po(iv) affinity.

A water-soluble "N2S2O2" complexing agent was designed for polonium(iv) decorporation. The bifunctional ligand showed outstanding Po(iv) complexing abilities, with a conditional stability constant three orders of magnitude higher than the reference ligand BAL.