Synthesis of α-Ketoimidoyl Fluorides via Geminal Fluorine-Promoted Azide Rearrangement.

Despite the promising synthetic potential, the utilization of imidoyl fluorides has been hampered by the lack of broadly applicable preparative methods. Herein, bench-stable α-ketoimidoyl fluorides were synthesized from geminal chlorofluorides through tandem azidation/rearrangement under mild conditions. The efficiency was consistently high, regardless of the steric and electronic environments. The synthetic utility of the α-ketoimidoyl fluoride was also demonstrated. Furthermore, the remarkable accelerating effect of the geminal fluorine substituent was identified and rationalized by density functional theory calculation.