Research

Fluorinated molecules are of interest across the wide spectrum of academic and industrial chemistry, e.g. pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, fine and specialty chemicals and polymers. Therefore, today there is a clear need for specific methods that can be used to introduce fluorine at any desired position in a molecule. Our research aims to enlarge the scope of ¹⁹F and ¹⁸F-​transformations via new reagents and methods. Recently, we developed a new concept of reactivity umpolung that allows to prepare polyfluorinated compounds by reacting polyfluorinated iodanes (considered as electrophilic reagents) with electrophiles. This novel transformation opens up new possibilities also towards the radiosynthesis of [¹⁸F]CF₃CF₂-​containing compounds from cyclotron produced [¹⁸F]fluoride.