Reactivity of Electrophilic Trifluoromethylating Reagents

Kinetics of the reactions of colored carbanions (reference nucleophiles) with S‐(trifluoromethyl)dibenzothiophenium ions (Umemoto’s reagents) and hypervalent trifluoromethyl‐substituted iodine compounds (Togni’s reagents) have been determined photometrically using stopped‐flow techniques. The second‐order rate constants k2(20 °C) for the reactions of Umemoto’s sulfonium ions (generation I and II) with the reference nucleophiles in DMSO follow the correlation lg k2(20 °C) = sN(N + E) and can be used to determine the electrophilicity parameters E of these trifluoromethylating reagents. It is shown that the conditions reported for the reactions of Umemoto’s generation I reagents with a variety of C‐nucleophiles are in line with the electrophilicity parameter E ≈ –13 determined for these reagents. Though Togni’s hypervalent iodine‐based trifluoromethylation reagents do not follow this linear free energy relationship, the kinetics of their reactions with carbanions indicate that they cover the same reactivity range as Umemoto’s generation I and II reagents.