r,,γ-Trifluoroalkanes: A Stereoselective Synthesis Placing Three Vicinal Fluorines along a Hydrocarbon Chain Marcello Nicoletti, David O’Hagan,* and Alexandra M. Z. Slawin School of Chemistry, UniVersity of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9ST, UK Received August 4, 2004; E-mail: do1@st-andrews.ac.uk Organofluorine compounds have had a huge impact in the design of performance materials with outstanding examples found in pharmaceuticals, 1 agrochemicals 2 and organic materials 3,4 products. In the pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals arena selective fluorina- tion of aromatics or the incorporation of a CF 3 group represents the typical strategy for incorporation of organic fluorine. 5 Within the materials arena highly fluorinated or perfluorinated compounds have been used as lubricants and polymers for a diversity of products and applications; 6 however the properties of organic materials with an intermediate level of fluorination, and particularly with multiple fluorines at stereogenic centers, have been hardly explored. There is clear evidence that the C-F bond can be exploited as a tool for influencing the conformation of organic molecules, particularly when it is used as a replacement for hydrogen. 7 This is most easily illustrated by the well-known gauche effect which recognizes that 1,2-difluoroethane prefers a gauche over an anti conformation. 8 This gauche preference of vicinal fluorines can also influence the conformation of longer hydrocarbon chains such as meso- and (()-2,3-difluorobutanes and (()-erythro- and (()-threo-9,10-difluorostearic acids. 9 For example in the latter case the erythro isomer has a similar conformational stability to the hydrocarbon (stearic acid), whereas the threo isomer shows significant conformational disorder. This was attributed to the preference of the vicinal C-F bonds preferring to align gauche to each other in both systems, the former stabilizing and the latter destabilizing the classical anti-zigzag conformation of the hydro- carbon chain. Recognizing that the relative stereochemistry of vicinal C-F bonds can have a significant influence on the conformation of hydrocarbons, we have now decided to explore R,,γ-trifluorohydrocarbons where three fluorines are arranged along a hydrocarbon chain. Such systems have up to four diaste- reoisomers and eight enantiomers, and clearly any meaningful synthesis to this class of compounds requires stereocontrol, such that the properties of different diastereoisomers can be evaluated. As an initial contribution to the preparation of these compounds, a method for the synthesis of two of the diastereoisomers of the vicinal trifluoro alkyl motif, is described for the two different molecular systems, 1a and 2a as well as 1b and 2b. In the first instance the racemic diastereoisomers of 2,3,4-trifluorononanes 1a and 2a were prepared to develop the synthetic protocol, and the method was then applied to the synthesis of the racemic 6,7,8- trifluoro-1-phenylheptadecanes 1b and 2b. The latter route started from allylic alcohol 3b which derived from a condensation of 6-phenylaldehyde and non-1-yne followed by LAH reduction of the resultant propargylic alcohol 10 (Scheme 2). The sequential introduction of the fluorine atoms in a stereospe- cific manner relied heavily on Sharpless cyclic sulfate methodology. Epoxidation of the appropriate allylic alcohols 3 afforded the diastereoisomeric epoxides 4a and 4a′ or 4b and 4b′ as a 2:1 mixture for both series. These isomers could be separated in each case to progress toward each of the diastereoisomeric series a and a′ or b and b′; however it proved more efficient to separate these diastereoisomers after treatment with HF‚pyridine. This resulted in a stereo- and, importantly, a completely, regiospecific ring opening and generated the fluorohydrins 5a and 5a′ or 5b and 5b′, retaining the 2:1 mixture. These diastereoisomers were readily separated by silica gel chromatography (Scheme 1). The vicinal diols of both diastereoisomeric series were then converted to their cyclic sulfates 6a and 6a′ or 6b and 6b′ using the method developed by Sharpless, and the sulfates were ring opened, again in both a regio- and stereospecific manner to generate 8a (or 8b) and 8a′ (or 8b′) after in situ hydrolysis of the ring opened difluorosulfates 7a (or 7a′) and 7b (or 7b′). 10,11 The third fluorine atom was introduced by activation of the remaining alcohol functionality in 8a (or 8a′) and 8b (or 8b′) to the corresponding triflates 9 followed by a nucleophilic substitution reaction with fluoride ion using TBAF. This reaction led to the desired R,,γ- trifluoroproducts. The products were always accompanied by elimination products, and despite considerable experimentation the current yield for this final step remains modest. Nonetheless the 1 and 2 diastereoisomers of the products a and b could be secured after chromatography. Enantiomerically pure products can be accessed by initiating the synthetic protocol with a Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation/kinetic resolution. This was explored only in the a series to confirm the stereochemical course of the first two fluorination reactions in Scheme 1. A Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation on allylic alcohol 3a and using (+)-DIPT and a limiting (0.5 equiv) amount of t BuOOH generated the (2S,3R,4S) enantiomer of allylic epoxide 4a′. The (2S,3R,4S) configuration of this product has been established previously. 12,13 Epoxide 4a′ was then converted to 8a′ as described above, and this crystalline difluoro alcohol proved amenable to X-ray structure analysis 14 (Figure 1). The resultant structure revealed a stereochemistry consistent with two configurational inversions during formation of each of the R- and γ-C-F bonds. The trifluoroalkane products 1 and 2 are liquids and were not readily amenable to crystallization; however the final fluorination which results from fluoride ion displacement of a triflate is assumed to proceed with an inversion of configuration. Com- pounds 1a and 2a proved to be particularly volatile, but 1b and 2b gave materials which were more amenable to longer term storage. The vicinal trifluoroalkanes were analyzed by 19 F NMR spec- troscopy, and the resultant data are shown in Table 1. It is most informative to compare the chemical shift of 1b and 2b. The configurational arrangement of the fluorines in diastereoisomer 1b posesses a pseudo symmetry, and consequently the R and γ fluorines have identical chemical shifts, whereas this pseudo symmetry does not exist in diastereoisomer 2b and each fluorine signal is now well resolved. These spectra reinforce the stereo- chemical assignments of the two diastereoisomers. For the 1 series the vicinal coupling constants (Table 1) J 2 FR-F (1a 12.9 Hz and 1b 12.3 Hz) and J 2 F-Fγ (1a 11.2 Hz and 1b 12.3 Hz) are similar Published on Web 12/23/2004 482 9 J. AM. CHEM. SOC. 2005, 127, 482-483 10.1021/ja045299q CCC: $30.25 © 2005 American Chemical Society