Perfluoroalkenes nucleophilic attack

Poly- and perfluoroalkenes are prone to nucleophilic attack of a fluoride ion followed by a proton from the solvent or the reagent. ... 

The rates and orientation of free radical additions to fluoroalkenes depend upon the nature of the attacking radical and the alkene, but polar effects again are important For instance, methyl radical adds 9 5 times faster to tetrafluoroethylene than to ethylene at 164 °C, but the tnfluoromethyl radical adds 10 times taster to ethylene [7551 The more favorable polar transition states combine the nucleophilic radical with the electron deficient olefin 17 and vice versa (18) These polar effects account for the tendency of perfluoroalkenes and alkenes to produce highly regular, alternating copolymers (see Chapter starting on page 1101)... 

For this reason, electrophilic additions such as addition of hydrogen halides are very difficult, as can be seen in Explanations 13, 14, and 15. But because of the low overall electron density, the double bonds in perfluoroalkenes are easily attacked by nucleophiles such as fluoride ion. If perfluoropropene is treated with dry potassium fluoride in a proton-donor solvent such as formamide, the fluoride anion joins the less negative carbon of the double bond and forms a negatively charged intermediate that readily reacts with the proton of formamide to give 2 H-perfluo-ropropane [5/]. Such a nucleophilic addition takes place with other fluorides such as cesium fluoride, tetraethylammonium fluoride, and sil-... 

The nucleophilic phosphorus atom in the bromopcntafluorobenzene/tris(diethylamino)-phosphane system attacks the bromine, affording a phosphonium cation and a carbanion. The subsequent reactions of these species depend on the presence of C-electrophiles. It has been shown that this system is convenient for the introduction of the polyfluoroaryl fragment into polyfluoro aromatic compounds and perfluoroalkenes examples are given by the formation of7-n. - - ... 

Fluorinated epoxides are very important synthetically. Perfluoroalkenes can be oxidized by numerous means to the corresponding epoxides. The most commonly encormtered epoxide is hexafluoropropene oxide (HFPO), which is made from hexafluoropropene and is used in the synthesis of oligomers and as a source of difluorocarbene. HFPO is a colorless, nonflammable gas, boiling at -27.4 °C it can be ring-opened easily by nncleophiles or electrophiles imder a variety of conditions. HFPO can be rearranged by flnoride ion to perfluoropropionyl flnoride and by Lewis acids snch as UO2 to hexafluoroacetone (HFA). Nncleophiles typically attack the most substituted carbon of the epoxide, freeing the oxyanion to lose fluoride or act as a nucleophile itself Some examples of HFPO reactivity are shown in Scheme 3. 

The reaction of trialkyl phosphites with perfluoroalkenes in an autoclave at l(X)-140°C results in the formation of dialkyl perfluoroalkenylphosphonates in low to good yields (21-81%, Scheme 3.7). " The mechanism involves the attack of the phosphite nucleophile at the polarized terminal CF2 position to form a perfluoroalkenyltrialkoxyfluorophosphorane, which is stable under the usual conditions. This fluorophosphorane, which may be regarded as an isolable Michaelis-Arbuzov intermediate, decomposes on heating with elimination of alkyl fluoride to give dialkyl perfluoroalkenylphosphonates (Scheme 3.7). ... 

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