Controlled nucleophilic aromatic substitution of hexafluorobenzene using a flow microreactor

Abstract

Nucleophilic aromatic substitution (S_NAr) contributes to creating a variety of useful materials. It is well-known that selective S_NAr reactions of perfluorinated aromatics such as hexafluorobenzene with nucleophiles are difficult to achieve using conventional macro batch systems due to the contamination of the di-substituted products. To take advantage of flow microreactor system, we succeeded in the controlled S_NAr reactions of hexafluorobenzene with organolithiums employing continuous flow reactors.