Trifluoro radicals - Why you need them ?

Why Fluorine ?

Fluorine is the most electronegative and the most reactive of all elements. It is relatively small in size, with low polarizability, a high ionization potential and a very high redox potential. These properties make the Carbon - Fluorine bond the strongest single carbon bond known, it is the strength of this bond that lies behind the increased chemical and biological stability of many Fluorinated compounds. The presence of Fluorine in a molecule makes it more lipophilic, and Fluorine will increase the acidity of acids, alcohols and amides and reduce the basicity of bases, amines ethers and carbonyl compounds. Hence active molecules containing Fluorine tend to have significantly higher potency than their non Fluorinated analoges, due to the improved absorption, and longer biological half-life. These changes to the physicochemical properties of molecules offer significant advantages to organic chemists, pharmacologists and toxicologists.
The Fluorine atom is only slightly larger than Hydrogen, despite the difference in atomic radius Fluorine is still an excellent mimic of Hydrogen, and importantly a mimic of the Hydroxyl radical. Trifluoro and Hexafluoro substituted chemical intermediates offer organic chemists comparatively safe and economic routes to introduce Fluorine substitutions into new active molecules. 
Many Trifluoroacetyl compounds are available in commercial quantities including Trifluoroacetic Acid, Trifluoroacetic Anhydride, Trifluoroacetyl Chloride and Trifluoroethanol, Ethyl Trifluoroacetate and Hexafluoroisopropanol. Each of these short chain fluorinated aliphatic compounds is used in the production of world class pharmaceutical and agrochemical active ingredients.
Newer products include Hexafluoroacetone derivatives, Trifluoroacetone derivatives, Hexafluorobutyne, Ethoxytrifluorobutenone, ethyltrifluoroacetoacetate and Trifluoroacetaldehyde hemiacetals and Difluoro aliphatic compounds. These new materials provide chemists with chemical building blocks to enable the relatively easy introduction of Difluoro, Trifluoro and Hexafluoro radicals into new molecules.

In addition to their use as intermediates to introduce Fluorine into small molecules, Trifluoromethane sulphonic acid ( Triflic Acid ) is regularly used as a reaction catalyst, where it's high heat stability ( 230 ºC) ensures no Fluoride ions enter any effluent streams. Triflic acid is one of the strongest commercially available acids, and can be used in some cases at 30 to 150 times lower concentrations than normal acid catalysts. Triflic acid can also be readily recovered from water streams and recycled back into the process. The Lewis acid salts ( Al, Zn, Bi, La, Yb ) are being used as replacements to Fe Cl3 and Al Cl3, as they are non corrosive stable solids that are water stable, recoverable and again used at 30 to 100 times less concentration than the apparently much cheaper traditional alternatives. Our technical experts are available to advise whether our materials would suit your process.