Tamed fluorine

There are many stories of harrowing close calls in the fluorine chemistry lab, especially from the early years, and synthetic challenges at times remain daunting. But, fortunately, modem techniques and facilities have enabled significant strides toward taming both the hazards and synthetic uncertainties. 

Difluoroiodo)- and (dichloroiodo)arenes have been used not only in diverse halogenations but also in oxidations. In several instances they served as tamed molecular analogues of fluorine and chlorine. Both (difluoroiodo)- and (dichloroiodo)arenes possess high reactivity but they often react in a complicated way. A general comment concerning such cases is that the neutralization of acids released may be beneficial to the outcome of the reaction. 

Lerman, O., Tor, Y, and Rozen, S.. Acetyl hypofluorite as a taming carrier of elemental fluorine for novel electrophilic fluorination of activated aromatic rings, J. Org. Chem., 46, 4629, 1981. 

Other significant trends include the "taming of radical chemistry (27-291. continuing improvements in protecting group chemistry (4,20), and new methods for fluorination (31 Haga... 

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