Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Catalysis

Fluorination made easier

Nature volume 466, pages 447–448 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

By putting the pieces of a chemical puzzle into the right order, a thorny problem in catalysis has been solved. This opens the door to syntheses of molecules that contain the useful trifluoromethyl group.

When chemists try to make molecules, they cannot always get what they want. For example, they have tried for some time now to find good ways of introducing trifluoromethyl groups (CF3) into complex organic molecules, but without much success. There are compelling reasons to develop such a reaction, because the introduction of trifluoromethyl groups can dramatically change the properties of molecules, often for the better. Among other things, trifluoromethyl groups can increase the brain penetration of drugs that act on the central nervous system, and they can make materials more durable. Reporting in Science, Cho et al.1 now describe a general catalytic reaction that allows molecules containing trifluoromethyl groups to be made much more easily than before.

Your institute does not have access to this article

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Catalytic cycle for a trifluoromethylation reaction.

References

  1. Cho, E. J. et al. Science 328, 1679–1681 (2010).

    ADS  CAS  Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. de Meijere, A. & Diederich, F. (eds) Metal Catalyzed Cross-coupling Reactions 2nd edn (Wiley-VCH, 2004).

  3. Grushin, W. V. & Marshall, W. J. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 128, 12644–12645 (2006).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Ball, N. D., Kampf, J. W. & Sanford, M. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 2878–2879 (2010).

    CAS  Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Dubinina, G. G., Furutachi, H. & Vicic, D. A. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 130, 8600–8601 (2008).

    CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Oishi, M., Kondo, H. & Amii, H. Chem. Commun. 1909–1911 (2009).

  7. Wang, X., Truesdale, L. & Yu, J. Q. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 132, 3648–3649 (2010).

    CAS  Article  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tobias Ritter is in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. ritter@chemistry.harvard.edu,

    Tobias Ritter

Authors
  1. Tobias Ritter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Ritter, T. Fluorination made easier. Nature 466, 447–448 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466447a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/466447a

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing