Fluorination of 2‐bromo‐4,5‐dimethylphenol with xenon difluoride

Abstract

Fluorination of 2-bromo-4,5-dimethylphenol (1) with xenon difluoride, using boron trifluoride etherate as catalyst, gave 2-bromo-4,5-dimethyl-4-fluorocyclohexa-2,5-dienone (2), 2-bromo-3,4-dimethyl-6-fluorophenol (3) and 6-bromo-3,4-dimethyl-2-fluorophenol (4). The products were isolated by means of preparative reverse-phase HPLC and identified by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy.