Mild electrophilic trifluoromethylation of secondary and primary aryl- and alkylphosphines using hypervalent iodine(iii)-CF(3) reagents.

A direct, mild and efficient trifluoromethylation of primary and secondary phosphines is achieved with easily accessible, cheap hypervalent iodine compounds acting as electrophilic CF(3)-transfer reagents.

An iron-catalysed chemo- and regioselective tetrahydrofuran synthesis.

An intermolecular ring expansion reaction of an aryl epoxide with several dienes, acrylates, enynes or styrenes under iron catalysis, generated tetrahydrofuran derivatives in a highly chemo- and regioselective fashion. The process could be used in an unprecedented way for the one step synthesis of racemic calyxolane A and calyxolane B with acceptable diastereoselectivity.

Bridging fluorides and hard/soft mismatch in d6 and d8 complexes: the case of [Tl(mu-F)3Ru(PPh3)3].

[RuCl2(PPh3)3] reacts with thallium(I) fluoride to give either [Tl(mu-F)3Ru(PPh3)3] (1) or [Tl(mu3-F)(mu2-Cl)2Ru2(mu2-Cl)(mu2-F)(PPh3)4] (2) depending on the excess of TlF used. Both 1 and 2 were fully characterized, including X-ray structure determinations. Complex 1 reacts with dihydrogen to form the known ruthenium hydride complex [Ru(H)2(H2)(PPh3)3] upon hydrogenolysis of the Ru-F bond. The reaction of 1 with activated alkyl bromides (R-Br) gives the corresponding alkyl fluorides and the trinuclear complex [Tl(mu3-F)(mu2-F)(mu2-X)Ru2(mu2-Br)(mu2-F)(PPh3)4] (X=Br, F) (3), whose structure closely resembles that of 2. However, 1 is not active as catalyst for the nucleophilic fluorination of R-Br in the presence of thallium fluoride. The effect of the bridging coordination mode of fluoride on the Ru-F bond is discussed in terms of the HSAB principle, which suggests a more general model for predicting the stability of d6 and d8 complexes containing hard ligands (such as fluoro, oxo, and amido).