Scalable Approach to Fluorinated Heterocycles with Sulfur Tetrafluoride (SF4).

A general approach to fluorinated (hetero)aromatic derivatives is elaborated. The key reaction is a deoxofluorination of substituted acetophenones with sulfur tetrafluoride (SF4). In contrast to previous deoxofluorination methods, this transformation is fast, scalable (up to 70 g), and high-yielding. More than 100 novel or previously hardly accessible fluorinated heterocycles, interesting for medicinal chemistry and agrochemistry, were synthesized.