Kinetics of Electrophilic Fluorinations of Enamines and Carbanions: Comparison of the Fluorinating Power of N-F Reagents.

Kinetics of the reactions of enamines and carbanions with commonly used fluorinating reagents, N-fluorobenzenesulfonimide (NFSI), N-fluoropyridinium salts, Selectfluor, and an N-fluorinated cinchona alkaloid, have been investigated in acetonitrile. The reactions follow second-order kinetics, and from the measured rate constants one can derive that the fluorinations proceed via direct attack of the nucleophiles at fluorine, not by SET processes. Correlations of the fluorination rates with the p KaH values of the nucleofugal leaving groups and the calculated fluorine plus detachment energies are discussed. The rate constants for the reactions with deoxybenzoin-derived enamines follow the linear free energy relationship log k2(20 °C) = sN( N + E) which allows the empirical electrophilicity parameters E for these fluorinating agents to be derived from the measured rate constants and the tabulated N and sN parameters for the nucleophiles. Though the deviations of the measured rate constants from those calculated by this relationship are larger than for reactions of Csp2-centered electrophiles with nucleophiles, it is shown that the electrophilicity parameters E reported in this work are able to rationalize known fluorination reactions and are, therefore, recommended as guide for designing new electrophilic fluorinations.